Primary Care's Code Blue: Can basic patient care be revitalized? Who are ambulatory-care-sensitive utilizers, why do they use emergency care in place of primary care, and what are morally responsible solutions to such utilization?

Abstract

Part One of this paper will identify what it means exactly to access primary care in the ER, the people who access such care, and why they access primary care in the ER. I argue that those who access primary/ambulatory care in the ER do so due to myriad social, structural, economic barriers to be further discussed in this paper. The current healthcare system hurts patients and fails to provide equal access to preventive- and treatment-based primary care. In part two, I state that we have a responsibility to provide solutions to the unequal and superfluous “primary” care that is commonly accessed in ERs due to such barriers, supported by the Rawlsian claims of Norman Daniels. Lastly, I identify the most relevant and feasible current and possible solutions for eliminating primary care-based ER visits. [From Introduction]