How English- and Spanish-preferring patients with cancer decide on emergency care.

Objectives: Despite widespread efforts to reduce emergency department (ED) visits, patients newly diagnosed with cancer often use the ED for commonly anticipated acute care needs. Existing delivery innovations to reduce ED use are underused, and reasons for this are not understood. Patients who recently visited the ED may provide insights into these patterns of care.

Study Design: Qualitative study of semistructured patient interviews from April 2019 to April 2022.

Methods: We interviewed patients diagnosed with cancer within the prior 6 months from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and its academically affiliated but clinically distinct safety-net health system Parkland Health who had recently visited their respective ED. We completed 29 interviews in English and 11 in Spanish, then analyzed the interviews with the constant comparative method.

Results: Nearly all patients were unaware of, but interested in using, 24/7 telephone triage and oncology urgent care clinics. Safety-net patients, especially Spanish-preferring patients, reported less access to outpatient cancer teams. Patients did not weigh symptom severity to decide between sites of care, but insured patients were concerned about the cost of hospital visits. Patients did not look forward to visiting the ED but understood its advantages, and for safety-net patients, the ED was the main way to access physicians. When patients were discharged home, they were relieved not to be hospitalized, and the good clinical experience inadvertently reinforced future ED use.

Conclusions: Even robust education programs for patients with cancer may have difficulty conveying the availability of innovative clinical services. Patient perspectives on avoidable ED visits may differ from policy makers' definitions.