By Barry Belcher, MD
Background and rationale
In 2024, data showed that out of all Nationwide Children’s Hospital Urgent Care visits, there was approximately a 4.4% rate of patients who returned to the Urgent Care system within seven days. This equates to just over 2400 visits per year. Additionally, the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Primary Care network has noted underutilization of acute care visits of their patients. Many of the return visits to the Urgent Care were also noted to be patients who were either asked to follow up with their Primary Care Provider or for concerns that would be better suited for PCP visit.
Project Review
Through the Process Improvement Academy, this project began in November, 2024 and will run through December 2025 with a six-month follow up. We will be identifying patients that are seen in the Urgent Care System with NCH who have PCPs that are also affiliated with NCH who have a specific follow up need from their visit (i.e. not as needed).
Once those patients are identified at their UC visit, we are working with our registration team as well as the primary care registration to schedule them with their Primary Care prior to them leaving their UC visit. Our goal is to decrease the percentage of UC bounce backs to under 3%. We have begun a PDSA at our busiest off-campus site, Westerville and have thus far shown a marked improvement in follow up. Out of 15 patients that met this criteria in the first four weeks of the project, all of them followed up with their PCP as scheduled prior to leaving the Urgent Care.
With the success of this PDSA, we intend on slowly rolling out to the remainder of the off-campus Urgent Cares within the next few months and eventually to our Main Campus site.
