It’s no secret that our health care system is too expensive.

The scale of the problem is enormous – the recent (and subsequently semi-retracted) pledge of the health care industry to slow the increase in cost by 1.5% was projected to save $2 trillion. No wonder, then, that the new administration has earmarked nearly $20 billion in the HITECH stimulus bill to build IT systems that can create efficiency and help reduce cost.

While this investment in IT has great potential for health care, the industry’s major crisis probably won’t be averted in time: by 2018, health care costs per capita are projected to swell by 60%. The system needs an IT solution that is faster-acting and easier to implement.

One such opportunity for short-term savings is reducing emergency room visits. More than $67 billion is spent on the 120 million ER visits per year in the United States. That amount of spending is staggering and completely avoidable.

An estimated 35% of patients who seek help in an ER could go to a doctor’s office instead – at an 80% discount. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the median cost of an office visit is $63, while the average cost of an ER visit (with no x-rays, lab tests or surgery) is a whopping $302. The median hospital outpatient visit comes in at $131. Put these numbers together, and the savings potential comes out to $18 billion per year. So why has this huge amount of savings not been recovered?

Probably because considering a primary care doctor as an alternative to the ER appears to make no sense.

In larger U.S. cities patients wait an average of 20 days between making an appointment and seeing a doctor. In Boston the average wait is 49 days, in Atlanta, the best city in a 2009 survey, it is 11. Clearly, these waiting times are far too long for an emergency situation. But these numbers don’t reflect the reality in a doctor’s office.

Roughly 20% of patients cancel in the last minute or simply don’t show up at all. These available times are usually wasted and virtually impossible to discover for the emergency patient, giving patients with avoidable cases no alternative but to contribute to an overcrowded emergency room.

ZocDoc is a system that can significantly reduce ER cost: 38% of appointments made through the system are for appointments within the next 24 hours, and over 60% fall within 3 days. Moreover, 18% of ZocDoc patients self-identify as emergencies.

A matching system creates a win-win-win situation: payors see significant savings, doctors see more patients, and patients are seen faster. Matching demand to supply is an integral part of any business, so why should it be any different for health care?

Emergencies, after all, should be dealt with in a hurry.