Bottom Line: Safety-net hospitals are those that see a substantial share of uninsured, Medicaid, or low-income Medicare patients. Their emergency departments (EDs) deliver disproportionally more undercompensated and uncompensated care, yet have similar operating costs as other EDs. Authors convened a group of 15 administrators of academic safety net EDs to identify and
develop a consensus understanding of barriers to delivering optimal care. See the link for details of their conclusions.
The 5 major calls to action specific to safety-net EDs identified by the group of content area experts
were as follows:
(1) a need for financially aligned incentives
(2) a need for timely access to outpatient primary and behavioral care
(3) a need to optimize our health care system’s in patient and post–acute care capacity
(4) a need to ensure appropriate workforce staffing and workplace safety
(5) a need to uniquely support vulnerable patients impacted by the social drivers of health.
Table 1 below shows potential solutions identified to address these concerns.
Yun BJ, Singh MK, Reznek MA, et al. Strengthening essential emergency departments: Transforming the safety net. Health Affairs Scholar, 2025, 3(3), doi.org/10.1093/haschl/qxaf044.
