JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association
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To determine if risk of death for hospitalized injured patients changes when an urban trauma system is implemented. ⋯ Establishment of a trauma system shifted the more seriously injured patients to level I trauma centers, where there was a significant reduction in the adjusted death rate.
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To determine the regular source of care and the relationship between usual provider and use of medical services among ambulatory emergency department patients. ⋯ Our patients rely heavily on emergency departments for ambulatory physician visits, regardless of their reported regular source of care. However, patients who identify an emergency department as their regular source of ambulatory care used physician services less frequently than patients with access to providers in other settings. These issues require further evaluation with population-based surveys.