Will Life-Saving Emergency Care Be There When You Need It?
Source: American College of Emergency Physicians
From press release:

Economic woes and a failing health care system mean more people than ever before are relying on emergency care at a time when the nation is receiving a substandard C- grade for it support of emergency patients, according to a new Report Card on the State of Emergency Medicine. Dr. Nicholas Jouriles, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), which released the report, said policymakers can no longer remain oblivious to what is happening in emergency departments and called on President-elect Obama and the new Congress to make emergency patients a top priority in health care reform proposals.
…
States that showed the best support for emergency patients are Massachusetts, which ranked first with the highest overall grade and the only B, followed by the District of Columbia and Rhode Island (tied for 2nd) and Maryland (ranked 4th), which earned a B-. States showing the least support for emergency patients are Arkansas, which ranked last (51st) with the only overall D-, followed by the D states of Oklahoma (ranked 50th), New Mexico (ranked 49th), Oregon (ranked 47th) and Idaho ranked 46th).

The Report Card measures state support for emergency patients — not the quality of care provided at specific emergency departments or hospitals. The national category grades are: Access to Emergency Care: D-, Quality and Patient Safety: C+, Medical Liability Environment: C-, Public Health and Injury Prevention: C, and Disaster Preparedness: C+.

+ National Report Card (PDF; 3 MB)
+ Overall State Grades
+ Category Rankings by State
+ Summary Statistics for State Comparisons (PDF; 142 KB)
+ Data Sources

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 11th, 2008 at 4:41 pm and is filed under Health and healthcare. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.