Yes, urgent care clinics do ease pressure on hospital emergency departments – but they need some tweaks to work better

New research says yes – but there’s scope to make them work better.

“Urgent care centres can help reduce the number of ED presentations and reduce public health care costs,” says Dr Feby Savira, who led the research in the Deakin Health Economics Domain at Deakin University’s Institute for Health Transformation.

“However, there are gaps we need to address to ensure urgent care centres deliver consistent and effective care.”

UCCs provide care for people with non-life-threatening conditions that require immediate attention – things like ear pain, tonsillitis, and high fever. They are often walk-in services offering bulk billing and extended hours.

Working with colleagues at Deakin University and the Western Primary Health Network, Dr Savira analysed evidence of the impact and effectiveness of UCCs by reviewing existing research publications that investigated either (1) the impact of UCCs or (2) experiences and views of UCC patients and practitioners.

The researchers report that while patient satisfaction with UCCs is high, public health education would be beneficial in guiding people to seek the most appropriate care for their health problems.

Supporting clinicians in workload management, interdisciplinary communication and collaboration, and training were also identified as important considerations for UCC success.

The study authors also recommend better training for nurse practitioners and others to ensure they can triage and help manage conditions commonly seen in UCCs.

Dr Savira and colleagues note that Australia currently has no clear standard for how UCCs should operate. They recommend developing national guidelines informed by recent evaluations of UCCs (including those by the Deakin team), to provide a consistent framework for assessing performance, ensuring services are high quality, effective, and delivering value for money while meeting community needs.

The research is published as an open access paper in The Medical Journal of Australia.

Read the research paper titled: Urgent care centres for reducing the demand on emergency departments: a scoping review of published quantitative and qualitative studies

Read more about Dr Feby Savira’s research.