Bradford Regional Medical Center officials are hoping the
Emergency Department renovations will cut down on patients’ wait
times and improve the overall efficiency of the department.
Glen Washington, senior vice president of operations at BRMC,
said the Emergency Department is designed to serve 8,000 patient
visits a year, but has been having 16,000 to 18,000 patient visits
a year. He said the current space was originally the old pediatric
unit of the hospital and was never designed as an Emergency
Department.
“We were not satisfied in the set-up (of the Emergency
Department), and that’s what drove our decision” to come up with
the Strategic Plan for the renovations and construction, Washington
said. “They’re renovations using innovation – with better tools, we
could do a lot better job. We needed something with the proper size
and design. We did the very best job we could with” the space we
had.
“The current Emergency Department is the oldest part of the”
hospital, said Dr. John Breznik, MD, medical director of the
Emergency Department, adding the renovated department will be more
modernized as well as larger.
Officials predict the new space, increasing from 4,600 square
feet to 8,400 square feet, will allow for 21,000 visits a year.
Sandy Fesenmyer, RN, nurse manager in the Surgical Services
Department, said the pre-operation and post-operation rooms went
from 10 to 20 rooms. She said before, the staff felt they had to
rush patients out because they needed the rooms.
“There’s (also) functional benefits for the staff that will get
(patients) quickly in and out,” said Deborah Price, senior vice
president of Patient Care Services.
Fesenmyer said the nurses’ stations in the Surgical Services
Department, which were at least a hallway away before, will be just
through a door, and the nurses are trained in both surgery and
recovery so they can flip departments if things get particularly
busy on one side.
Washington displayed a blueprint showing that the nursing
stations are centrally located for a much easier flow.
Ann Kaczmarek, RN, nurse manager in the Emergency Department,
said in a year, the department sees a total of 17,000 patients. She
said 65 percent of them come in with a non-emergency medical
condition, labeled as a level 3 condition.
She explained a level 3 condition is urgent but not an
emergency. A level 3 condition could be a sore throat or twisted
ankle, she said, adding that a twisted ankle can’t wait two or
three days for treatment but is less urgent than something like a
heart attack.
Kaczmarek said a level 2 condition is urgent but worsening and
includes abdominal pain, dizziness, shortness of breath and some
fractures. She said the condition means some determination is
needed to see if it is a serious or level 1 condition. She
explained a level 1 condition is life-threatening, such as injuries
from motor vehicle accidents, heart attack, stroke and increased
heart rate.
Kaczmarek said levels 1 and 2 get the top priority in the
Emergency Department. She said a trained triage nurse sorts
incoming patients.
Washington explained the modified “Fast Track” area is one piece
of the Emergency Department designed for less urgent emergency
patient services, specially fitted out with its own nursing station
and treatment areas and staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
This area will see level 3 conditions identified through the triage
process in order to get the patients in and out faster.
Kaczmarek added that some patients come to the Emergency
Department because it is outside of their physician’s office hours,
but everyone who comes to the department is eventually treated
regardless of the condition.
“We handle all aspects of the patient’s needs,” Kaczmarek
said.
Washington explained that in a physician’s office, someone comes
in with an ailment, and the physician will order out lab work or
X-rays and send the patient home, contacting them a day or two
later with the results.
“In the Emergency (Department), we don’t send people home
without the results,” Washington said. “If there is a degree of
urgency, we don’t send them away. It isn’t safe.”
To help speed up receiving the results, renovations include
adding a pneumatic tube system to send samples and results back and
forth from the lab. Kaczmarek said this also eliminates the chance
of lab workers overlooking samples left for them.
Breznik talked about technology helping make things faster, too.
He said the Emergency Department is using trackers that
electronically keep track of a patient’s records, allowing for very
fast access of the records and easy tracking of the status of a
patient.
Price said with the electronic trackers, one patient had a CAT
scan, and the doctors were looking at the images from the CAT scan
before the patient got back to the emergency room.
Kaczmarek said some patients leave the Emergency Department
because they have an appointment or work and didn’t think it would
take as long to get treatment as it did.
“No matter where you go, especially on a busy day, there are
waits,” Price said. “We try to deal with (everything) in a timely
manner.”
Kaczmarek said for about the last three to six months, she has
been doing callbacks to patients who left the Emergency Department
to see what can be done to try to make things more efficient.
“We may or may not need to change based on what they tell us,”
Kaczmarek said.
Price talked about the hospital’s customer satisfaction survey,
saying they listen to what people have to say in the surveys as
well as other forms of patient input – whether it be that they
appreciate the care or think things can be done differently.
