Repeat ‘super users’ are swamping the ER
by Carol Ann Campbell/The Star-Ledger
Sunday July 13, 2008, 8:45 AM
Bean-thin and sallow, George tugged on a cigarette in the blistering parking lot of a Camden men’s shelter. Standing on the pavement, his foot on a picnic bench, he recalled how he took his first drink at 13.
George, here talking to a social worker in Camden, is an emergency room ”super user,” having been admitted to ERs in the small city between 30 and 40 times in the past year.
The hard living shows in the lines of George’s face — and in his medical history. When he gets sick, which is often, the 55-year-old has no place to go except one of the city’s emergency rooms.
George is a “super user,” a new name coined to describe people who turn to the ER with astonishing frequency and at an astonishing cost to a health system under siege on all fronts.
This is a very well written article, and I’d bet every ED in America has the same group of ‘super users’, patients who are in the ED a lot, not because they want to be but because for a variety of reasons they don’t have other choices. It’s unfortunate that their only choice is horribly expensive and fragmentary care.
Nobody has an answer to the problem, but I applaud New Jersey for trying to do something about it.
George, here talking to a social worker in Camden, is an emergency room ‘’super user,” having been admitted to ERs in the small city between 30 and 40 times in the past year.
Admitted to the ER eh? Is there a family practice resident writing “admit to ER” as they walk in the door?
Also, the Star-Ledger should know that they’re FREQUENT FLYERS in every ER that I’ve ever heard of, not “super users”.
Hi, I was just going through my blogroll and wanted to see if everyone was still blogging. Glad to see you are still trucking along!
Brandon J
Money for Military
Give them all jobs clearing the roads of IED’s.
They don’t have clinics, so everyone goes to Cooper?
I’m pretty sure they have clinics.
He says, “I don’t like going to the hospital, But sometimes I have no choice.” Quitting smoking and drinking and drugs are possibilities that would not be considered for someone who regularly, almost once a week, has chest pain or shortness of breath.