What Do We Need to Do Now?

Over the past few months, in a world closed to face-to-face service delivery and social interaction, we have adapted and, for the most part, realized the importance of being apart to keep us all safe. In the face of the pandemic, we saw emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations for all but the most urgent injuries and illnesses drop dramatically. The number of people who failed to seek timely treatment because of fear of exposure to the contagion will never be known. But this also raises the question of how the thousands of non-emergent cases seeking care in Canada's EDs in pre-pandemic times have managed over these past months. Has anyone realized that once and for all, policy needs to mandate changes to ensure appropriate ED utilization?