Reconceptualizing the role of emergency care in the context of global healthcare delivery.

Abstract

Since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, innovation in global healthcare delivery has been recognized as a vital avenue for strengthening health systems and overcoming present implementation bottlenecks. In the recent rapid development of the science of global health-care delivery, emergency care-a critical element of the health system-has been widely overlooked. Emergency care plays a vital role in the health system through providing immediately responsive care and serving as one of the main entry points for those with symptomatic disease. We present a new perspective on emergency care's role in the health system within the context of global health-care delivery, and argue that, if properly integrated, emergency care has the potential to add significant value across the healthcare continuum. Capitalizing on emergency care as a shared delivery infrastructure presents opportunities to increase efficiency not only in treatment of time-sensitive conditions, but also for secondary prevention through its capacity to promote early disease detection and enhance coordination of care. We propose an integrated emergency care delivery value chain, demonstrating emergency care's critical position as a point of access to the greater health system and its key connections to longitudinal care delivery, which remain under-developed in low- and middle-income country health systems. As emergency care systems are created within emerging and established health systems, this role can be more effectively leveraged by policy makers and healthcare leaders globally to promote progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.