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| Vol. 21, No. 18 |
| October 1, 1999 |
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Hermann Opens Its New Emergency Center by ROGER WIDMEYER Texas Medical Center News In a very real sense, Houston and Southeast Texas received a splendid gift Aug 9. Without much fanfare, the Memorial Hermann Hospital emergency center opened for business on the first floor of the new Hermann Pavilion. Twelve stories above, the new Life Flight helipad and communications center also opened.
The new emergency center, at 52,000 square feet, is three times the size of the old emergency area. The emergency center staff had conducted drills a week earlier to test the new facility and equipment.
"The drills went well, and we certainly needed to know that everything would go smoothly once we began shutting down the old and opening the new," says Tom Flanagan, administrative director of the emergency services, Life Flight and its communications center at Hermann. Flanagan has been with Hermann's emergency department since 1985, first as a night shift ER nurse. A year later he became a flight nurse for Life Flight, then chief flight nurse, then chief nurse of emergency services, and finally director of both programs. Dr. Carolyn Galloway is medical director of emergency services, and Dr. James "Red" Duke is medical director of Life Flight. Both physicians are professors at The University of Texas-Houston Medical School. "The opening went well," says Flanagan. "We owe a special thanks to a few of the hospitals - Ben Taub, Methodist, St. Luke's, Texas Children's and LBJ," he says. "The night before we opened, we wanted to decompress, naturally. The Houston Fire Department Emergency Medical Services helped a great deal by taking patients to those hospitals. It was a fine effort by our colleagues at these facilities and at HFD. "We double-staffed for the move," explains Flanagan. "The old emergency center shut down at about 11 p.m., Sunday, and by 4 a.m. the move was very much under way. By 7:30 a.m., Monday, Life Flight was all systems `Go.' The communications center opened simultaneously. That first day, we made six flights." The move into the new emergency center and the Life Flight center helped the staff "move forward," past the trauma of losing three colleagues in the Life Flight crash of July 17, Flanagan says. "I think this helped in the healing process. It was a devastating loss for all of us." The Hermann emergency center saw about 53,000 in 1998, one-third of them trauma victims. Hermann and Ben Taub General Hospital operate the only Level I trauma centers in the Houston metropolitan area; they accept the most life-threatening injuries. The new center at Hermann has eight trauma rooms, two of them specially designed for pediatric patients. There are four cardiac care rooms. The center has seven pediatric beds in addition to its complement of adult holding beds. The center has a complete radiology service including a CT scan. In addition to the 15 UT faculty physicians, the center has a staff of 94; Life Flight has a staff of 62, including mechanics and pilots. Currently, Flanagan has just four openings. "Emergency staff are dedicated, but emergency medicine is hard work, so there's turnover. People do get tired of seeing injury and death after awhile." Something new in the Hermann emergency services is the urgent care fast-track program, operated from 11 a.m.-midnight. "It was a great idea suggested by our nurse manager in the ER, Toni Clark," says Flanagan. "It is a service for `walk-ins' - adults and children - who might, under ordinary circumstances in an ordinary emergency room, wait for hours because they just aren't sick enough to be priority. Busy emergency rooms can have too many LBTs - `left before treatment' - and those people leave angry. Here, the nurse practitioner and technician on staff in the urgent care setting can see these folks quickly, give some meds if need be, and have them on their way," he says. "Ninety-eight percent of our urgent care patients are seen and discharged in an hour or less. Over 500 patients use that service in a month. And that kind of service is very important now in hospitals," says Flanagan. Flanagan speaks about the changes he has seen in hospital care since he joined Hermann nearly 15 years ago. "Then, the patients needed us," he says. "Now, all hospitals are seeking the business. We are a service industry, really. You want to make sure your patients are pleased with the service and, at the same time, you are charged with keeping costs down. We have to make sure both perceptions of quality - the hospital's perception of low mortality, low infection rates, cost efficiency and the public's perception of friendliness, cleanliness, fast service plus quality care - are met. That has to be part of our staff training now. "Of course our first job is saving lives."
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