Creating an Acute Care Inventory

Acute care visits account for 354 million outpatient visits annually. While a robust acute care infrastructure exists in the US (i.e. emergency departments (ED), emergency medical services (EMS), urgent care centers, primary care offices, etc.), the system is difficult to navigate. Stakeholders including patients, providers, and payers struggle to understand what resources exist and where to go when urgent, episodic health services are required. We outline and describe how to build an acute care inventory.