Everyone wants to be healthy. With all of our different dreams, ambitions, and goals in life, that is a pretty standard one that pretty much everybody can agree on. The advancements in science, technology, and medicine over the last few decades have allowed us to reach a point where so many injuries and sicknesses and treatable and curable. In the grand scheme of things, people today have a higher chance of being safe and healthy than past generations have.
However the main factor that allows this higher rate of health is access to those cures and treatments. If those who are in need of health care cannot get to a doctor or a center for emergency services, then it doesn’t matter how advanced the treatments are or how curable the sickness or injury is. People need to have reliable services available to them at all times, as pain and sickness don’t always stick to normal business hours.
Finding quality ER care without the wait
These days there are several emergency rooms and urgent care centers that people can get to if the need arises. Over the last few years, there has been a bit of a shift between what constitutes a visit to your regular doctor’s office, an urgent care center, or the emergency room. Urgent care centers have become almost interchangeable with ERs and sometimes doctors’ offices as well, providing care and relief for everything from lacerations to sore throats and itchy eyes.
One of the most important things that people expect in dire health situations is prompt and accurate care. When you have urgent medical needs, of course you want quality, trusted experts in emergency care but you want that ER care without the wait. Continuing to build care facilities, to train doctors and staff to treat the masses, and to attempt to provide ER care without the wait should be one of our society’s biggest collective goals to reach for.
The care that is provided today
Yes, there is always room for improvement. In fact it has been predicted by the Association of American Medical Colleges that the country could be lacking over 90,000 physicians by 2020, and at the current rate, that number could grow to 130,000 by 2025. For growing populations, there should be growing care and services. Luckily, it seems that professionals who practice urgent care medicine are picking up some of the slack. There are currently 20,000 such physicians, and that number is growing. The specialty builds on an important aspect of the medical field, attempting to bring care to more people.
Around 60% of the existing urgent care facilities have relatively short wait times, of 15 minutes or less. On top of that, 65% of those care centers have an on-site physician available all the time. Giving more people more options for health care, that are more accessible, will only help to build to a healthier nation overall.
There will likely always be room to improve when it comes to providing health care for those who need it. But we can get on the right track now and continue to work together to make everyone healthy.