Oklahoma hospitals pin success on efficient ER units
H1N1 flu virus concerns are taxing facilities, physicians
BY DEBBIE BLOSSOM
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Published: November 1, 2009
Modified: November 4, 2009 at 10:16 am
Modified: November 4, 2009 at 10:16 am
Overflowing hospital emergency rooms have been getting more crowded for years, and now concerns about the H1N1 flu virus are taxing emergency care facilities and physicians even further.
A nurse’s station in the emergency department is shown Friday at Integris Baptist Medical Center in northwest Oklahoma City. Photo by Jim Beckel, The Oklahoman
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Increasing volume
Ten years ago, St. Anthony Hospital officials anticipated increasing ER volume and built a new emergency department, said Stacy Coleman, vice president of strategy and business development.
And to increase efficiency, in the past few years the hospital has added treatment rooms, more nurses and physicians, established a triage pro-cess and installed an electronic bed tracking system to improve bed turnaround times, Coleman said.
The hospital expects its ER will see 46,000 people by the end of this year, she said; 4,000 more than three years ago.
At the University of Oklahoma Medical Center’s pediatric emergency department, three additional treatment rooms have been added in a new fast-track area in the ER open daily during high-traffic hours of 4 p.m. to midnight, said hospital spokesman Allen Poston.
The area is set up to handle cold and flu patients quickly, he said, without waiting in the traditional ER.
Increasing medical use
Published studies in 2008 by the Centers for Disease Control and Annals of Emergency Medicine showed that overall use of the ER rose 36 percent in the past decade, with about 20 percent of all visits for preventive care.
Saving time
But mostly, efficient ERs save the customer’s time, and that makes for a more satisfying, stress-free experience, hospital officials said.
The more efficient an emergency department is, and the quicker a visit goes, the better it is for everyone, Naylor said.
"Efficiency does lower costs to hospitals, which could mean the potential to reduce costs for patients,” he said.
A shrinking number of emergency departments and rising demand for services is increasing the wait time for patients, and a number of people leave an ER and never receive treatment because the wait is so long, industry observers say.
So efficiency is making a big comeback at some Oklahoma hospitals that are facing a record volume of ER patients.
At Integris Southwest Medical Center, emergency department efficiency isn’t a proposal, it’s a reality.
"We are the busiest emergency department in the state,” Borin said. "We see 85,000 patients a year” in an area with only 28 beds. We are seeing double what we should see in the amount of space we have.”
Compared to the average national wait time of 159 minutes for a trauma department, "we average about 65 minutes for all patients, from the time they arrive, see a doctor and are discharged,” Borin said.
Those numbers have improved during the past three years even as the department’s patient volume has continued to climb, he said. In March 2006, the wait was between 85 and 90 minutes.
The ER saw 76,000 patients in 2007, "and we’re on track to see 86,000 this year,” Borin said.
Setting a record
In September, the southwest Oklahoma City facility’s emergency department treated 8,700 people, or about 300 a day. And that’s a Southwest record. Factor in the current flu cases, and the hospital’s ER patient count could reach 106,000 for the year, he said.
Integris Southwest Medical Center’s efficiency efforts in part come from a program developed by Irving, Texas-based VHA Inc.
The company, formed in 1977, has 17 regional offices and thousands of members. In Oklahoma, there are at any time between 25 and 28 hospitals that benefit from VHA’s data service and educational programs that let each member compare its procedures and progress with other members.
A program to create more efficient ERs "began in 2005 after member hospitals requested help with how their departments functioned,” Naylor said
Naylor met with emergency department directors to decide what procedures and policies would be measured, and each hospital provided VHA with data. What each facility was doing to improve operations is available to each member for comparison, he said.
Some member hospitals have already cut wait times and decreased the number of people who leave without being seen.
Related Topics:
Health and Fitness, Emergency Medicine
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It seems some want total government control of every facet of everyone's life.
It just seems like throwing thousands of dollars about to insure a positive perception all the while the other side of the face is whining about not having enough funding. I live in Yukon, which has a hospital. Regardless the 'warm fuzzies' from hospital advertisements on TV and billboards, If I needed surgery I wouldn't select a hospital then find a doctor who is on staff but the other way around. I can't imagine it otherwise. In an emergency, in all likelihood won't care or be able to decide on which hospital I am taken to.
Or is the point to try to make people decide to become patients of a hospital and demand their doctor perform some procedure, any procedure, to fill beds based on a TV advertisement or drive perception to the point that the gullible actually believe a life can be saved but only at (insert appropriate hospital name here, whether "friendly faces" or "saints in action", both of which border on false advertising).
It just seems to me to be a waste of money, which of course will become part of my bill if and when I am ever admitted.