Summit ER prepares for $8M expansion - Nashville Business Journal:

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The Hermitage hospital is seekinh state approval to add eight beds to itsemergencgy room, which would bring its total to 31. The proposerd project would givethe 188-bed hospitap more room for urgent care and make the ER faster and more comfortabler for patients, officials say. A key feature is its two one for patients wth severed injuries or conditions and another for thosewith less-urgent needs. “This is all about the desigbn and making everything more efficient for the patienrt andfor staff,” Summit’s emergency room directord Randy Farrar says. “Privacy is difficult in an emergencyt room, but the new design will offer muchmore privacy.
There’s even goinfg to be a small grieving room.” Summit is one of several area hospitals to upgraded its emergency rooms in recentyeares — an effort to respond to the ballooning demand. Most of the expansionss have beenin high-growth areae where more beds are needed, Farrar says. Summit CEO Jeff Whitehornj says emergency rooms have become so crowdedc in recent years that rethinkint the design hasbecome essential. Summit had 47,000 emergencu room visits last an increaseof 2,000 from the year before. “Wde are at capacity,” Whitehorn says.
“The expansion will help us keep Still, there’s an element of competition to emergency room saysHolly Kunz, director of emergencuy services at in Nashville. “Like all health care providers, ours is a competitivs business,” Kunz says. “We are often judged on how quicklyh we cansee patients.” Saint Thomas completer a $4 million ER renovation in adding 11 private rooms and a designate d chest pain center for cardiac And spent $12 million to expand and upgrade its ER four yearse ago.
“The first impression is formed in the firstf three minutes of interaction in theemergench department,” says Gary Howard, Vanderbilt’s director of emergencg services. “It’s the point of entrh for the majorityof patients.” Howard says Vanderbiltr saw about 57,000 patientw last year and has logged 60,000 so far this “As big as our emergency room is, we still have patientzs in the lobby,” he says. “Thirty-eighrt percent (of our enter through the emergency room.
” is buildingf a new $268 milliobn facility in Murfreesboro that’s slated to open in 2010 and will includea 40-bed emergency room, with the capacity for 50 “The emergency room is like your front says Monty Gooch, the hospital’s director of emergency “You want to make sure you make the righg impression. The design is an important part of One of the busiest ER departments in Middle the medical centersaw 63,000 patients last and Gooch says patient visits are increasing 5 percentt to 10 percent a Nationally, the reports an increase of 5 millionn emergency room visits between 2004 and 2005, the most current data available.
The increased visits stem from a decreas e in primary care doctors and an increase in the underinsured and uninsured, with more peopl poorly managing chronic conditions such as diabetes, Howard says. “And the Baby Boomers are beginning toflood in,” he “We are finding that patients are a lot sicker when they come to us. The volume s have increased dramatically.”