Our Services
Emergency Department
A New Attitude
A major transformation has occurred in our Emergency Department (ED). Starting at the top, the leadership skills introduced by our new ED medical director, Dr. Robert Rosen, and our new ED director, Tiffany Bell, have not only helped increase staff morale, but have helped raise the satisfaction levels of our patients.
“Dr. Rosen and I approach the day-to-day operations of the ED together,” Tiffany explains. “We make sure we take the time to listen to what the staff has to say, and we aggressively address each issue. And both of us take time to listen to the patients and family members who want to communicate their concerns.”
A New Environment
We listen to the feedback provided by our patients, and last year we made numerous changes based on those comments. Improvements to the ED’s physical area include a relocated triage area; a new receiving area, registration desk and security desk; new trim, ceiling tiles, and a fresh coat of paint throughout the ED; plus new furniture and a flat-screen plasma TV for the waiting area. We also added five beds to our Fast Track, a new suture room, and a new orthopedics room.
Shorter Wait Times
One of the most common complaints heard in EDs across the country is the excessive amount of time it takes for a patient to be seen. We put several measures in place to help speed up that process. By increasing our ED staff, adding another physician provider during core hours, and completely digitizing our documentation procedures, we managed to shorten the average length of stay for our ED patients from three hours and 30 minutes to two hours and 56 minutes. (The national average is four hours and 12 minutes.) This was not an easy task, considering the ED staff treated over 25,000 patients last year, which was also roughly 1,000 more patients than it treated in the previous year.
A New Program that Saves Lives
Because we’re a community hospital, we rely heavily on our partner, the University of Virginia (UVA), to treat patients with advanced medical conditions. Last year we partnered with UVA on a new program that helps regional hospitals more quickly diagnose and treat heart attack patients. Project UPSTART uses a carefully designed, systematic approach to reduce the amount of time between diagnosis and treatment for major heart attack patients who need advanced services, such as emergency angioplasty in a specialized lab.
“Project UPSTART is a standardized protocol,” Tiffany explains. “It is designed to get our patients with ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) to UVA’s cath lab quicker. What this means is better survivability for those we are able to get to the lab within a 90-minute window. And when you have a standardized protocol in place in a hospital department, such as the ED, it makes things go faster, it reduces the chances of error, and it ensures standard practice.”
Satisfied Customers
We’re proud of our 2007 ED accomplishments, and our patient satisfaction scores are starting to reflect the many improvements we have made. From 2006 to 2007, our ED patient satisfaction scores improved from 75 percent to 81 percent. (The national average is 83 percent.) Last year we made great strides in several areas, including patients’ impressions of our nursing and physician care, pain management, safety, and the ED environment. We’re continuing this trend by working diligently in all areas of patient satisfaction so that we can continue to meet the growing expectations and needs of our local community.