Emergency room symptoms may not predict health care needs: study

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – The symptoms people come to the emergency room with may not predict the actual diagnosis they're given when they're released from the hospital, according to a new study. Researchers found about 6 percent of 35,000 patients who visited ERs in 2009 did not need immediate care, but that could not be predicted when they first got to the emergency department. "Until we evaluate them in the emergency department, we don't know if their condition requires emergency treatment or not," said Dr. …