Every year in New York State, over 4 million people make approximately 7 million visits to hospital emergency departments (ED) that do not result in a hospital stay. Looking at the primary reason for these ED visits shows that many could have been dealt with in a different, less costly primary or preventive care setting.

The visualizations in this dashboard contain high-level summaries of how often people visit the ED, what kinds of conditions they are seeking treatment for, and how the number of ED visits differs across counties statewide. The dashboard also includes calculations that estimate whether an ED visit for certain conditions could have been avoided with adequate access to care, care coordination, or patient monitoring.

While it is not possible to eliminate every ED visit that could have been treated in a different setting, New York State can move closer to achieving the triple aim of better care, higher quality, and lower costs by reducing just a fraction of these visits. Tracking rates of ED visits can help identify the conditions and regions where resources may be targeted to improve patient outcomes and quality of care provided, increase primary and preventive care access, and reduce costs.

Data Source:

The data source for this dashboard is the New York State Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative (SPARCS) hospital discharge data for 2018-2019; for more information or questions about this data, please contact nysapd@health.ny.gov. For additional information on data, definitions, and methods, please see the Overview of the ED Visits in New York State Dashboard.

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