Deciding Whether You Need Emergency Care Or Urgent Care
When you are feeling sick or injured, it will always seem like it's an emergency to you. However, it's important to your own health (and the health of any other patients you encounter) that you choose the medical facility that best fits your actual needs. The following will help you understand the importance of making the right choice during a medical crisis. It will also describe what each department is supposed to handle so that you can select the right one for your situation.
Why It's Important to Choose the Right Facility
If you are a patient who would be better treated at an urgent care center, going to a hospital emergency department simply means that you will experience a longer wait. This is because emergency rooms will always treat the most critical patients first. In addition, if you have the flu or a cold, you will be exposing emergency room patients whose immune systems may not be up to the task of fighting it off. It's much better to use an urgent care facility when it's appropriate for addressing your problem. That way you won't overtax the emergency room system and interfere with the treatment of people who need their services.
What Emergency Departments Handle
A hospital emergency department is tasked to provide immediate care and treatment for those patients whose problems cannot wait. The patients who should go to an emergency room are those who face the possibility of death or permanent life-changing consequences if their problem is not immediately treated. Often, emergency rooms deal with patients who have been brought in by emergency responders. The kinds of conditions that emergency rooms are intended to handle include the following:
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Heart attacks or severe chest pain.
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Severe or large surface burns.
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Coma or loss of consciousness.
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Severe bleeding you cannot control.
What Urgent Care Centers Handle
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Relatively minor injuries, including sprained ankles, simple fractures, bites or cuts.
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Falls, minor burns and bruises.
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Airborne allergies and respiratory infections.
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Flu, cold and any flu-like issues or symptoms.
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Headaches, migraines, muscle pain or overall body aches.
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Allergic reactions (excluding anaphylactic shock, which requires emergency room treatment).
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Digestive problems, diarrhea, acid reflux or GERD.
Choosing the right medical treatment facility like Peninsula Community Health Services- Medical (Cottonwood) for your particular problem will not only benefit you (by allowing you to get quick, effective and less expensive treatment), it will also help both the emergency room and the urgent care center more efficiently assist both you and their other patients.
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