Health care utilization and outcomes of patients seen by virtual urgent care versus in-person emergency department care.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Virtual urgent care (VUC) is intended to support diversion of patients with low-acuity complaints and reduce the need for in-person emergency department visits. We aimed to describe subsequent health care utilization and outcomes of patients who used VUC compared with similar patients who had an in-person emergency department visit.

Methods

We used patient-level encounter data that were prospectively collected for patients using VUC services provided by 14 pilot programs in Ontario, Canada. We linked the data to provincial administrative databases to identify subsequent 30-day health care utilization and outcomes. We defined 2 subgroups of VUC users; those with a documented prompt referral to an emergency department by a VUC provider, and those without. We matched

SUBMITTER: McLeod SL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10627570 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature