Whether or not the North Boroughs continues to have an emergency room located at Allegheny General Hospital - Suburban Campus in Bellevue depends on whether the facility will continue to provide inpatient services.

That’s because, according to AGH president Gregory Burfitt, state law links the two.

“Pennsylvania law does not allow for one without the other,” Burfitt said in a memo to the team currently reviewing how the Suburban Campus can best be utilized in the health systems search for fiscal stability.

The figures Burfitt cites are compelling: 90 percent of the people using the Suburban Campus are there for outpatient services other than surgery. Only four percent are inpatients, and the other six percent visit the hospital for outpatient surgeries. Of these patients, two-thirds reside outside the AGH-SC primary service area.

One of the options under consideration, Burfitt said, is replacing the emergency room with an urgent care center. The less acute types of cases that could be seen at an urgent care center matches the use patterns of the E.R. at Suburban, he said.

Also a factor in the decision, Burfitt said, is how changes in the E.R. and inpatient services will affect surgical services.

Burfitt said that a decision on inpatient/E.R. services is expected to be made within the next few weeks, with evaluation continuing over the next six months.