Access to emergency care is an important public health metric. Unfortunately, patients in high minority and low-income communities are less likely to have access to specialized emergency department care. When they present to these hospitals, they must be transferred to other hospitals for definitive care. Thus, transfers are critical in ensuring that all patients receive appropriate emergency care. Recognizing the importance of this, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) requires Medicare-participating hospitals to provide emergency care to all patients, regardless of non-clinical characteristics like race, ethnicity, or payer. Thus, the “nondiscrimination” provision of the law requires that the decision to transfer an unstable emergency department (ED) patient not be based on these non-clinical characteristics. Unfortunately, the law has it loophole — it is silent about whether hospitals can transfer patients to different hospitals based on non-clinical characteristics.
At this seminar, Dr. Hsuan will discuss a series of papers where we investigated disparities in transfer destination and the implications of these differences on mortality.
About the Speaker
Charleen Hsuan is an assistant professor in Health Policy and Administration at Penn State, an affiliate at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, and affiliate law faculty at Penn State Law. She is PI of an NIMHD R01 studying disparities in emergency department transfers, and her research focuses on how laws and policies such as EMTALA and Medicare programs affect quality, access, and equity in emergency and hospital care. Dr. Hsuan has extensive experience with hospital discharge data, has served on CMS-funded committees to improve emergency care, and leads the health policy impact core of the Penn State CTSI. She previously practiced law at Goodwin Procter LLP and holds degrees from Yale, Columbia Law School, and UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
