<qa>  What is the problem of ED use?The system of medical care for older adults with acute illnesses often serves them poorly. Many factors limit these patients access to safe, patient-centered, efficient, high-quality, acute care. These factors include a shortage of geriatricians and primary care physicians; limited availability of timely, acute-illness, patient appointments; emergency department ED crowding; interruptions to the continuity of care when patients use the ED; and poor transitions of care from the ambulatory setting to the ED. These conditions foster unnecessary ED use, adverse events in the ED for which older adults are particularly at-risk, and unnecessary medical costs. As the population ages, the magnitude of these problems will only increase. 