title: Understanding Nonurgent Pediatric Emergency Department Visits: Using Hospital and Family-Centric Data to Inform System Redesign.
abstract: We conducted a mixed-method study to analyze the population and financial impact of emergency department use for pediatric nonurgent problems. Findings from this initial study led to our phase 2 case study, in which we interviewed 23 adults accompanying children younger than 4 years with nonemergent fever. The resulting qualitative analysis revealed that participants were unable to distinguish urgent from nonurgent conditions, perceived access limitations to care, and although they preferred the child's primary care physician, went to the emergency department for care.
authors.affiliation: Health Systems Research and Innovation (Dr Swavely, Ms Baker, and Mr Zimmerman) and Department of Emergency Medicine (Ms Bilger and Mr Martin), Lehigh Valley Health Network, Allentown, Pennsylvania.
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Swavely
authors.forename: Kathy
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Baker
authors.forename: Krista
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bilger
authors.forename: David F
authors.initials: DF
authors.lastname: Zimmerman
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Martin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000553:Ambulatory Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005334:Fever; D057220:Health Literacy; D006300:Health Services Misuse / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006776:Hospitals, Pediatric / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D011320:Primary Health Care; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013223:Statistics as Topic