If you're in an ambulance and your life is on the line, do you want civil servants in a "regional control center" to decide where to route your ambulance?
According to numerous news reports, the alternative — letting the ambulance crew decide where to take you — isn't any better: ambulances find they must divert their patients because of overcrowding and staffing issues at emergency rooms.
The proposed solution is to disaggregate the authority to decide where to go from the ambulance crews and give it to a regional authority that has an overall picture of the state of the emergency rooms:
The panel proposed regional ER systems, which would manage the flow of patients much like airports direct flight traffic. Patients would be quickly transported to emergency departments that are best equipped to handle their conditions. Stroke victims would go to stroke centers, for example.
I personally find the proposal makes me nervous. In my analysis, government intervention is the source of many of the problems the US health care system faces today, including the sad state of the emergency rooms. Further government intervention isn't likely to cure the problem.
Topics: · health+care
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