Use of emergency medical services by adults with developmental disabilities receiving integrated or usual care.
Daniel Gilmore, Emily Johnson, Lauren Wang and 6 others
PMID 42115043WHAT IT FOUND
Adults with developmental disabilities in integrated care were less likely to use the emergency department or be hospitalized than those in usual care, but this cannot prove integrated care caused it.
Key findings
01The analysis included 6706 adults with DD, with 5311 receiving usual care and 1395 receiving integrated care.
02Integrated care patients had significantly lower odds of all-cause, psychiatric and non-psychiatric ED visits and hospitalizations than usual care patients.
03Psychiatric admissions were 2.1% among usual care patients and 0.9% among integrated care patients.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The study is cross-sectional, so it cannot show that integrated care caused lower emergency service use. Patients may have selected or been placed into different clinics based on unmeasured needs, and the analysis did not match them on mental health symptom severity, demographics or legal guardianship. The study included only the two clinics examined, so results may reflect those sites rather than integrated care more generally. Psychiatric ED and hospitalization events were low, and the authors say this limits interpretation. The data came from electronic health records and coding categories, so classification errors are possible.
Declared interests
No funding source is stated. Drs. Wang, Keeton, Johnson and Rivendale are providers at the Freeman Center and/or Mood Disorder Clinic.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that integrated care reduces emergency department use or hospitalization. This study compared two clinics and did not match patients on mental health needs or other factors, so selection and unmeasured differences could explain the lower use.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →