Red Sox' success eases health care crisis

When the Red Sox are playing in big games, as they did last fall, use of hospital emergency rooms decline. This is according to an analysis by researchers at Children's Hospital reported in the Boston Globe.

''The heart attacks, the strokes, they will come no matter what's going on," Conn said. ''The patient with pneumonia, the patient with an asthma attack will say, 'Maybe I can ride this out at home.' "

The decline in visits -- and the assumption that the patients who deferred care were those whose conditions were not true emergencies -- illustrates a long-recognized reality in emergency medicine: For many patients, especially those without insurance, the ER is where they go for basic medical services.

There was no evidence, the researchers from Children's report, of a surge in ER visits immediately after the game concluded. ''It wasn't like people were holding off until the ninth inning and then running to the emergency department," Brownstein said.

Go Sox!