Posted May 18, 2011

NEW YORK (MainStreet) — Emergency rooms in cities across the country are closing their doors, according to a new report published in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association that found that between 1990 and 2009, the number of hospital emergency departments in non-rural areas in the U.S. declined by nearly 30%.

Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, which conducted the study, attribute the decline in part to low profit margins and poor location choice, but said that the nature of emergency rooms themselves wasn’t helping their cause.

“As the only place in the U.S. health care system that serves all patients, emergency departments (EDs) are the ‘safety net of the safety net,’â€