Wondering if you should visit our Urgent Care or the Emergency Department? Remember, ED visits should be reserved for true emergencies, such as chest pain and severe injuries or trauma. Small injuries and illnesses can be examined by our urgent care physicians. If greater care is needed, our staff will direct patients to the proper healthcare provider, or, if it is a true emergency, we will transfer patients directly to the emergency room for further treatment.
What is the difference between an urgent care clinic and a hospital emergency room? When should you go to urgent care for treatment and when should you go to an emergency room?
Listen in as Dr. Bud Lawrence, emergency room physician at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, discusses when you can visit urgent care and when you really need to go to the ER.
How Do You Know if You Need Urgent Care or the Emergency Room?
From the Show: Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital - Its Your Health Radio
Summary:
Air Date: 12/19/16
Duration: 10 Minutes
Transcription:
Melanie Cole (Host): Are you wondering if an illness or injury requires a visit to urgent care or to the emergency room? My guest today is Dr. Bud Lawrence. He's an emergency room physician at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. Welcome to the show, Dr. Lawrence. First, what is urgent care? People hear this term and they're not quite sure what that means.
Dr. Bud Lawrence (Guest): Good morning, Melanie. Let's go through it. So, urgent care is a clinic or an office where patients can seek care that is not quite as emergent, doesn't need all of the many things that the emergency department can provide, doesn't need all the resources of the emergency department, and, generally, urgent cares can have less wait time but still provide excellent rapid care for many illnesses and injuries that are commonplace that most communities seem to find occurring on a daily basis.
Melanie: Then, let's start with urgent care. What do you think when parents have children that skin their knee, or have a headache, or stomachache? Tell us what things that they can take people to urgent care for.
Dr. Lawrence: So, I think it's very important that the community as a whole is educated on what urgent care services are available. So, for example at Henry Mayo, we do have the Henry Mayo Urgent Care Center which is in the front of the hospital near the main entrance and as most urgent cares are, this urgent care provides services for things like fevers, coughs, if you had earaches, back pain, if you had sprains, muscle aches, or even lacerations, fractures. Most urgent cares nowadays have x-ray and laboratory services, so they are able to provide services that are able to investigate multiple medical illnesses that are relatively minor. So, these are the things that, most times, if you thought to yourself, “I sure would like to get in to see my doctor, but there are no appointments”, or the doctor's office is closed, the urgent care is an excellent option for those patients without having to spend the time necessarily to go to the emergency department.
Melanie: Okay. So, when they go to urgent care, what can they expect as far as testing and treatment availability?
Dr. Lawrence: So, generally speaking, urgent care, at least most urgent cares, would be staffed by a provider that is either a physician--some urgent cares may have a PA or a nurse practitioner--but you should get a provider that's going to see you relatively quickly, and that provider would be able to diagnose you using a myriad of items, and like I said, in the Henry Mayo Clinic urgent care, we have x-ray, we have in-house rapid laboratory studies to come back immediately, and we're able to use these tools to diagnose patients. We even have many, many point of care tests such as influenza test, rapid strep--all these things that are becoming more and more commonplace to get a rapid diagnosis on a patient, get them seen, get them diagnosed, treated, and out the door so that you can get back to whatever it is you were doing. Certainly, if you came into the urgent care and your medical condition was more extensive than maybe you were expecting, generally speaking, the urgent care would then refer you on to the emergency department.
Melanie: Dr. Lawrence, some things might be a little confusing such as concussion. Is that an emergent situation, or is that an urgent care situation?
Dr. Lawrence: You know, concussion is relatively tricky. It is a relatively hot-button item these days and I would recommend that, from a concussion standpoint, to ensure that it's managed appropriately, globally, the recommendation would be that patients with concussion should probably go to an emergency department; however, many urgent cares these days are becoming more and more knowledgeable about concussion, and some urgent cares may even have a dedicated concussion pathway setup and are potentially working with local high schools and local team sports to manage concussion patients appropriately. That is actually one of the projects at the Henry Mayo Urgent Care Center is working on currently. But, if you were to ask me globally, nationally, I would say most patients should likely go to an emergency department and be seen by an emergency department physician for this, but some urgent cares are sort of moving into that field and are capable and able to take care of those patients.
Melanie: Another one might be abdominal pain. You've already mentioned that if the level of care needed is more emergent than urgent care provides, then, what? They get moved to the emergency room? So, if someone has a child with a stomach ache, they can start with urgent care? Do they go right to the emergency room? Some of these are just so hard to figure out.
Dr. Lawrence: They are so difficult. They are even difficult to figure out sometimes in the emergency department where we have all these resources. We have CAT scan and ultrasound. I would say that if you have severe abdominal pain, really tremendous belly pain, probably the place to go is the emergency department; however, if you have mild to moderate abdominal pain--some nausea, vomiting, diarrhea--that can be looked at initially at the urgent care and potentially some laboratory studies can be obtained. At our urgent care, at Henry Mayo Urgent Care Center, we have critical care nurses that work there, we can establish IVs and give fluids, intravenous medication, and check laboratories studies and get a gauge for where things are, sort of triage the patient to understand are they someone who's safe to be at home, or does that patient need to go to the emergency room for more resource utilization, more testing?
Melanie: So, give us some absolute musts for the ER, if people experience some symptoms that you say absolutely, call 9-1-1 or get yourself to the emergency room.
Dr. Lawrence: Absolutely musts. One hundred percent, I would say if you had severe chest discomfort. Chest pain, we never want to mess around with chest pain. That's very important. If you have neurological symptoms, where we're concerned about a stroke. So, if you had difficulty, speaking, walking, facial droop, numbness or weakness, those are very, very concerning symptoms. If you have uncontrolled bleeding--bleeding that is just severe, uncontrolled--those are reasons to go to the emergency department. Many patients as a layperson, if you look at a situation and you felt the need to call 9-1-1, clearly that's a situation where you should go to the emergency department. The one great thing about our urgent care is that we're actually on campus at Henry Mayo and because all of our nurses work in our emergency department, we're able to recognize these patients if they happen to come to our urgent care instead of the emergency department and we'll bring those patients by wheelchair directly across the parking lot to the emergency room for appropriate care. Because sometimes patients, as you said, it's difficult to understand where to go and where to direct yourself, but I do believe that, particularly over maybe the last 2-3 years, patients are becoming more and more educated about urgent care versus the emergency department. But there is an absolute role for the emergency department, particularly at Henry Mayo, has a stroke center, a heart attack center, and as a trauma center, and as an emergency department approved for pediatrics. Anything that is overly concerning where you feel like you have concern for life or limb, those are issues where you need to go to the emergency department.
Melanie: So, wrap it up for us with your best advice about how people can determine which one they need--whether they should call 9-1-1 or whether they can use urgent care.
Dr. Lawrence: I would say if your situation clearly is something where you would have gone to your physician's office if they were open, but they're closed or they're too busy, that is certainly something that should be seen at the urgent care, or could be seen at the urgent care. If it's something that you have a concern about, you think that you're sick, you think that you might have a fracture, you have some belly pain, these are all kind of moderate issues, those are certainly within the realm of an urgent care. Remember, the urgent care does have a fair amount of resources, but if you have something that is truly scary to you, if you have chest pain, if you have neurologic symptoms, if you have uncontrolled bleeding, severe abdominal pain, anything that would prompt you to even think about calling an ambulance--severe shortness of breath, those kinds of things--those are issues that are generally felt to be best dealt with in the emergency department. Another thing that we see in the emergency department that potentially could be dealt` with in the urgent care is more chronic issues. Things that are going on for more than a couple of weeks, those things oftentimes are best dealt with in the outpatient setting and the urgent care is certainly a place where we can try to sort through those issues and try to get resolution to those medical problems.
Melanie: Thank you so much, Dr. Lawrence, for being with us. It's great information. You're listening to It's Your Health Radio with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. For more information, you can go to www.henrymayo.com. That's www.henrymayo.com. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.
Melanie Cole (Host): Are you wondering if an illness or injury requires a visit to urgent care or to the emergency room? My guest today is Dr. Bud Lawrence. He's an emergency room physician at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. Welcome to the show, Dr. Lawrence. First, what is urgent care? People hear this term and they're not quite sure what that means.
Dr. Bud Lawrence (Guest): Good morning, Melanie. Let's go through it. So, urgent care is a clinic or an office where patients can seek care that is not quite as emergent, doesn't need all of the many things that the emergency department can provide, doesn't need all the resources of the emergency department, and, generally, urgent cares can have less wait time but still provide excellent rapid care for many illnesses and injuries that are commonplace that most communities seem to find occurring on a daily basis.
Melanie: Then, let's start with urgent care. What do you think when parents have children that skin their knee, or have a headache, or stomachache? Tell us what things that they can take people to urgent care for.
Dr. Lawrence: So, I think it's very important that the community as a whole is educated on what urgent care services are available. So, for example at Henry Mayo, we do have the Henry Mayo Urgent Care Center which is in the front of the hospital near the main entrance and as most urgent cares are, this urgent care provides services for things like fevers, coughs, if you had earaches, back pain, if you had sprains, muscle aches, or even lacerations, fractures. Most urgent cares nowadays have x-ray and laboratory services, so they are able to provide services that are able to investigate multiple medical illnesses that are relatively minor. So, these are the things that, most times, if you thought to yourself, “I sure would like to get in to see my doctor, but there are no appointments”, or the doctor's office is closed, the urgent care is an excellent option for those patients without having to spend the time necessarily to go to the emergency department.
Melanie: Okay. So, when they go to urgent care, what can they expect as far as testing and treatment availability?
Dr. Lawrence: So, generally speaking, urgent care, at least most urgent cares, would be staffed by a provider that is either a physician--some urgent cares may have a PA or a nurse practitioner--but you should get a provider that's going to see you relatively quickly, and that provider would be able to diagnose you using a myriad of items, and like I said, in the Henry Mayo Clinic urgent care, we have x-ray, we have in-house rapid laboratory studies to come back immediately, and we're able to use these tools to diagnose patients. We even have many, many point of care tests such as influenza test, rapid strep--all these things that are becoming more and more commonplace to get a rapid diagnosis on a patient, get them seen, get them diagnosed, treated, and out the door so that you can get back to whatever it is you were doing. Certainly, if you came into the urgent care and your medical condition was more extensive than maybe you were expecting, generally speaking, the urgent care would then refer you on to the emergency department.
Melanie: Dr. Lawrence, some things might be a little confusing such as concussion. Is that an emergent situation, or is that an urgent care situation?
Dr. Lawrence: You know, concussion is relatively tricky. It is a relatively hot-button item these days and I would recommend that, from a concussion standpoint, to ensure that it's managed appropriately, globally, the recommendation would be that patients with concussion should probably go to an emergency department; however, many urgent cares these days are becoming more and more knowledgeable about concussion, and some urgent cares may even have a dedicated concussion pathway setup and are potentially working with local high schools and local team sports to manage concussion patients appropriately. That is actually one of the projects at the Henry Mayo Urgent Care Center is working on currently. But, if you were to ask me globally, nationally, I would say most patients should likely go to an emergency department and be seen by an emergency department physician for this, but some urgent cares are sort of moving into that field and are capable and able to take care of those patients.
Melanie: Another one might be abdominal pain. You've already mentioned that if the level of care needed is more emergent than urgent care provides, then, what? They get moved to the emergency room? So, if someone has a child with a stomach ache, they can start with urgent care? Do they go right to the emergency room? Some of these are just so hard to figure out.
Dr. Lawrence: They are so difficult. They are even difficult to figure out sometimes in the emergency department where we have all these resources. We have CAT scan and ultrasound. I would say that if you have severe abdominal pain, really tremendous belly pain, probably the place to go is the emergency department; however, if you have mild to moderate abdominal pain--some nausea, vomiting, diarrhea--that can be looked at initially at the urgent care and potentially some laboratory studies can be obtained. At our urgent care, at Henry Mayo Urgent Care Center, we have critical care nurses that work there, we can establish IVs and give fluids, intravenous medication, and check laboratories studies and get a gauge for where things are, sort of triage the patient to understand are they someone who's safe to be at home, or does that patient need to go to the emergency room for more resource utilization, more testing?
Melanie: So, give us some absolute musts for the ER, if people experience some symptoms that you say absolutely, call 9-1-1 or get yourself to the emergency room.
Dr. Lawrence: Absolutely musts. One hundred percent, I would say if you had severe chest discomfort. Chest pain, we never want to mess around with chest pain. That's very important. If you have neurological symptoms, where we're concerned about a stroke. So, if you had difficulty, speaking, walking, facial droop, numbness or weakness, those are very, very concerning symptoms. If you have uncontrolled bleeding--bleeding that is just severe, uncontrolled--those are reasons to go to the emergency department. Many patients as a layperson, if you look at a situation and you felt the need to call 9-1-1, clearly that's a situation where you should go to the emergency department. The one great thing about our urgent care is that we're actually on campus at Henry Mayo and because all of our nurses work in our emergency department, we're able to recognize these patients if they happen to come to our urgent care instead of the emergency department and we'll bring those patients by wheelchair directly across the parking lot to the emergency room for appropriate care. Because sometimes patients, as you said, it's difficult to understand where to go and where to direct yourself, but I do believe that, particularly over maybe the last 2-3 years, patients are becoming more and more educated about urgent care versus the emergency department. But there is an absolute role for the emergency department, particularly at Henry Mayo, has a stroke center, a heart attack center, and as a trauma center, and as an emergency department approved for pediatrics. Anything that is overly concerning where you feel like you have concern for life or limb, those are issues where you need to go to the emergency department.
Melanie: So, wrap it up for us with your best advice about how people can determine which one they need--whether they should call 9-1-1 or whether they can use urgent care.
Dr. Lawrence: I would say if your situation clearly is something where you would have gone to your physician's office if they were open, but they're closed or they're too busy, that is certainly something that should be seen at the urgent care, or could be seen at the urgent care. If it's something that you have a concern about, you think that you're sick, you think that you might have a fracture, you have some belly pain, these are all kind of moderate issues, those are certainly within the realm of an urgent care. Remember, the urgent care does have a fair amount of resources, but if you have something that is truly scary to you, if you have chest pain, if you have neurologic symptoms, if you have uncontrolled bleeding, severe abdominal pain, anything that would prompt you to even think about calling an ambulance--severe shortness of breath, those kinds of things--those are issues that are generally felt to be best dealt with in the emergency department. Another thing that we see in the emergency department that potentially could be dealt` with in the urgent care is more chronic issues. Things that are going on for more than a couple of weeks, those things oftentimes are best dealt with in the outpatient setting and the urgent care is certainly a place where we can try to sort through those issues and try to get resolution to those medical problems.
Melanie: Thank you so much, Dr. Lawrence, for being with us. It's great information. You're listening to It's Your Health Radio with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. For more information, you can go to www.henrymayo.com. That's www.henrymayo.com. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.
