Urgent Care Could Replace ED For Some Patients, Report Says

But Gardner took issue with that as well because the data is at least five years old, and fails to consider that the number of patients who go to the emergency room for non-urgent reasons has been declining.

In recent years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of patients who sought care in an emergency room who were considered non-urgent—defined as whether they could wait 24 hours to be seen by a physician—has been dropping. In 2006 and 2007, it was 12% but last year, it was 8.9%.