At 554 hospital emergency department visits per 1,000 people, Ohio had the sixth-highest ED visit rate in the United States in 2010, according to a Middletown Journal report.
This rate is 34 percent higher than the U.S. average and is an approximate 23.4 percent increase from the state's ED visits in 2002, when it had 449 visits per 1,000 people.
Greg Moody, who heads Ohio Gov. John Kasich's Office of Health Transformation, said Ohio's high ED utilization rate may reflect an earlier start by other states in investing in primary care, which presents an alternative to the ED, according to the report.
Ohio is working on programs to improve healthcare delivery that may also prevent unnecessary ED visits. For example, it began a $1 million initiative to train 50 practices across the state on a patient-centered model that focuses on care coordination, according to the report.
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This rate is 34 percent higher than the U.S. average and is an approximate 23.4 percent increase from the state's ED visits in 2002, when it had 449 visits per 1,000 people.
Greg Moody, who heads Ohio Gov. John Kasich's Office of Health Transformation, said Ohio's high ED utilization rate may reflect an earlier start by other states in investing in primary care, which presents an alternative to the ED, according to the report.
Ohio is working on programs to improve healthcare delivery that may also prevent unnecessary ED visits. For example, it began a $1 million initiative to train 50 practices across the state on a patient-centered model that focuses on care coordination, according to the report.
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