Is the USA spending too much in the emergency department?

Researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington (WA, USA) have found that the USA’s spending budget for the emergency department (ED) increased by 4.4% in 10 years. The research was published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE. Overall annual spending on the ED was USD$79.2 billion in 2006, adjusted for inflation. This quickly rose to USD$136.6 billion in 2016 demonstrating an annual rate of change, population-adjusted, of 4.4%. However, healthcare spending only grew by 1.4% during those 10 years. Co-first authors Kirstin Scott and Angela Liu (University of Washington) found that although “ED...