Educate Patients About When and How to Access Urgent Care

Establish a mechanism for educating patients on when to seek urgent care and how to access urgent care services at your clinic.

Best practices:

1. Create an educational resource for patients

To intervene before a patient takes an unnecessary trip to the emergency room, it is important to educate them on what symptoms are considered urgent and how they can get in touch with your team if they experience those symptoms. Most clinics adopted and adapted the patient education resource template that appears below.

  • Tip 1: Be clear with your IBD patients that you would like them to contact you (if possible) before going to the emergency room.
  • Tip 2: Use simple, clear, patient-friendly language that describes which symptoms are considered urgent.​​​​
  • Tip 3: Be clear on how to get in touch with your clinic when the patient is experiencing an urgent issue.
  • Tip 4: Have several patients review the resource you create to ensure that it is easily understood and addresses all patient concerns.

Examples: 

Gastro One - “Our educational materials include: symptoms that are considered urgent vs. emergent and what to do in those circumstances. The educational materials have been well received, with a lot of positive feedback from both patients and staff. We feel that by providing our patients with education, contact information, and explaining the difference between urgent vs. non-urgent we have been able to decrease the number of patients seeking the emergency room inappropriately.”
Northwestern University - “We did a look to see which patients were going to the emergency room and mapped out the narrative of what happened. We found that a lot of patients that went to the emergency room were not contacting us before-hand and just showing up at the emergency room. So, we created the patient education document, which contains information on what to do if you have urgent symptoms, how to call/message us, and describes what is urgent and not urgent.”

University of Chicago - “Prior to Qorus, patients didn’t know which method of contact to use for what they needed. Patients were following up with urgent issues via MyChart, which of course wasn’t the best method to get urgent care. So, we created a form for patients on how to follow-up with us, which included:

  • Make sure you register for MyChart
  • Send non-urgent requests through MyChart
  • If contacting us for an appointment, direct them to the scheduling number
  • If contacting for a routine clinical question, direct them to the nurse
  • For urgent issues, first try calling the nurse’s direct line and leave a message for the nurse and if after-hours call the on-call fellow.

Implementing the form did help quite a bit.”
2. Determine how and when you will provide the educational resource to patients

Most clinics chose to either distribute a hard copy of their patient education resource as a brochure or flyer, include it in their After Visit Summary, and/or provide it through their electronic medical record system.

  • Tip 1: Implement a system for distributing your patient education resource that works best for your clinic and your patients.
  • Tip 2: Patients often get a lot of information thrown at them, so be sure to specifically highlight this resource, as well as its importance, with the patient.  Most sites found it helpful to provide this education during the first visit and repeat it upon subsequent visits.
  • Tip 3: Periodically evaluate the distribution system with patients to ensure that it is working and that patients are receiving the information in the way that they would like to receive it.

Examples: 

Baylor College of Medicine - “We were first putting it in the After Visit Summary, and it got printed with their discharge papers. However, we found that it was not useful because patients do not read everything that they are given. So, then we started talking about it to specific patients who we thought needed it. We then decided to make it into a business card (a laminated tri-fold). The card contained reasons to call. It even had specific names. For example, ‘Ask for so-and-so.’ It was still in the After Visit Summary, but we also started handing it out. We saw an uptick of use after this.”
Gastroenterology Associates, Inc. - “We include the patient education resource in our Welcome Packet. I will talk to the patient about it when they are a new patient. We will tell them that, ‘This is the hospital that we use, and call us before you to go to the ER.’ It is a one-page sheet. However, a lot of patients just take a picture of it on their smart phone so that they will always have it.”
University of Utah - “The educational resources are included in the new patient packets and in After Visit Summaries. A paper packet is given to folks we see in person and a dot phrase for others.”
Northwestern University -​​​​​​​ “We started giving our patients these cards about a year and a half ago. They are given to every patient as they are coming in for a follow-up visit. We are working to digitize the hard copy of the card so that we can send it through MyChart.”
Gastro One - “I personally give it to any new biologic patients in the infusion center, or I give it to anyone that I think may be at high-risk. Providers would also hand them out to their patients. It is a physical hard copy. We do not provide it via the electronic medical record.”
Midwest Gastrointestinal Associates - “When the physician indicates the patient is high-risk, we review the Urgent Care plan/card with the patient before leaving. The Urgent Care Card is included in a patient’s packet whenever they start a biologic.”

Resources:

 

This project is supported by a grant from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust.

 

Helmsley

 

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