By Tiffany Green
The Cullman Times
CULLMAN — Cullman Regional Medical Center’s emergency room continues to see improvement in wait times even when seeing more patients than before.
In November, ER staff saw 3,247 patients and the wait time continues to decrease. Since the closing of Woodland Medical Center in July, CRMC’s ER has seen a more than 36 percent increase in patient volumes.
“The ER treatment time from the time patients register, to the point of patients being discharged, averaged 97 minutes last month,” said Jim Weidner, president and CEO.
Weidner said the number of patients who leave without being seen is also improving. Left without being seen is defined as a patient signing in and then leaving before receiving treatment.
“For the first six months of 2009, CRMC’s emergency room averaged 1.7 percent left without being seen,” said Jete Edmisson, COO/CFO. “For the month of October, the left without being seen rate was 0.8 percent. November, the ER team decreased the rate to 0.3 percent and December is trending even lower.”
Edmisson said last year, the overall percentage of left without being seen was 2.2 percent with the national average being six percent.
“Only 16 patients left the ER without being seen,” Edmisson said. “That is good numbers.”
“The new Express Care area of CRMC’s ER averaged treatment time of 71 minutes last month,” Weidner said. “Nationally, emergency rooms that see more than 40,000 patients annually have an average treatment time of 4.4 hours. CRMC is projected to see more than 43,000 patients this year.”
Weidner said many improvements have been made to accommodate patients.
Improvements like the implementation of Fast Track, an area similar to an urgent care center, which CRMC calls Express Care. Fast track patients are those with non-urgent needs.
The ER has also installed a new electronic charting and patient tracking system called EmpowER.
The ER has increased staffing to accommodate the increase of patient visits including physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and emergency medicine technicians. The ER has also added a new area for patient overflow, designed to accommodate high volumes and added ER liaisons and greeters to help with better communication between patients and family members.
“Cullman Regional Medical Center’s Board of Directors is proud of the continued improvements made in the Emergency services and looks forward to the upcoming construction that will enhance the delivery of services through the emergency room,” Weidner said.
CRMC broke ground in August for the new ER expansion. The expansion is expected to be complete by February of 2011.
The expansion, which should raise the total emergency room space to 13,480-square feet, is slated to increase the size of the ER by approximately 66 percent.
The number of beds in the ER will increase from 20 to 24, while the existing emergency room department will also be renovated.
* Tiffany Green can be reached by e-mail at tgreen@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131, ext. 220.
