Informing Low-acuity Emergency Department Patients of Non-emergent Resources (2)

Purpose

The goal of this campaign is to reduce unnecessary visits to a Geisinger emergency department (ED). In this campaign, patients will be assigned to receive or not receive outreach following ED discharge with a low-acuity visit designation. Outreach will occur via a text message the day after discharge from the ED as well as information added to the patient's after visit summary (AVS). Depending on the assigned condition, it will include calls to see their primary care provider (PCP) or use an Intelligent Triage tool. The study will assess whether ED use within the following 120 days differs across patients in different outreach conditions (current standard practice vs contact your PCP vs use Intelligent Triage). It will also examine whether patients follow through on the message-specific calls to action differently across conditions.