Coordination Across Ambulatory Care: A Comparison of Referrals and Health Information Exchange Across Convenient and Traditional Settings.

Urgent care centers have been identified as one means of shifting care from high-cost emergency departments while increasing after-hours access to care. However, the episodic nature of urgent care also has the potential to fragment care. In this study, we examine the adoption of 2 coordination activities-referrals and the electronic exchange of health information-at urgent care centers and other ambulatory providers across the United States. We find that setting is significantly associated with both health information exchange and referrals. Several organization-level variables and environment-level variables are also related to the propensity to coordinate care.