1 in 7 ER visits in Canada are for conditions that could have been managed in primary care: report [Video]

Lack of access to family doctors and other primary care providers leaves many Canadians with no option than to go to the emergency department for care, new data suggests.

About one in seven visits to the emergency department in Canada are for conditions that could have been managed by a family doctor or other primary care provider like a nurse practitioner or pediatrician and roughly half of those visits could have been managed virtually, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).

Thursday’s report focuses on primary and virtual care access through the lens of visits to emergency departments between April 2023 and March 2024.

The institute previously reported over five million Canadian adults say they don’t have a family health provider, and even those who do say they experience major challenges getting access to timely care.

Now, CIHI developed a new indicator to gauge how hard it is to access care: emergency department visits for conditions that could …