Study: Emergency providers can play a role in helping sickle cell patients transition into effective primary care as they reach adulthood

摘要

There is new evidence that people with sickle cell disease tend to rely more on the ED as they transition from pediatric to adult care. While sickle cell experts have observed this phenomenon for years, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO, have unveiled data that strongly support this trend in ED utilization. The researchers analyzed the Medicaid data of more than 3,200 patients with sickle cell disease, and found that between the ages of 15 and 24, ED visits tripled in this group.Less clear is precisely why ED visits begin to spike in the later teen years, but experts suggest there are probably several contributing factors. "In some areas, the lack of adult providers is a big issue for sickle cell specifically, and in other places, insurance sometimes changes once a child becomes an adult, and that is an issue," explains Morey Blinder, MD, a hematologist and associate professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine. "It is also possible that for some of these people their disease is getting worse as they age ... so all of these problems crop up at the time of transition."