For the screening, emergency personnel ask patients about their drinking behavior. Doctors then have a conversation with patients who said they had consumed alcohol prior to their emergency-room visit.

A growing number of health experts are using the emergency-room visit as a "teachable moment" to identify people with alcohol problems and direct them to resources where they can receive the help they need.

"It's a prime opportunity to reach people at risk," said Dr. Gail D'Onofrio, an emergency-room physician at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut. "Many of the people are young adults, and they don't use primary care, and they don't have insurance."

Research indicates that nearly a quarter of the people who come to an emergency room with some kind of trauma are intoxicated.

"I can make the case that a two-minute screen for alcohol-use disorder can help doctors discover other medical problems patients may be at risk for," said Dr. Jeffrey Runge, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and a former emergency-room doctor. "Not to mention the risk of motor-vehicle injuries, the risk of spousal abuse, for falls, for other types of injuries."

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