re: Edwards, OLOL officially announce plans for new ER in north Baton Rouge

will this make olol less shitty?

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I thought there was already one of those in NBR. Fairly new place, somewhere in the area of Plank and Airline?

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Yep, this will be next to the same building.

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The ER will be added on to OLOL's existing LSU Health Urgent Care Clinic on Airline Highway and will be staffed by emergency physicians 24/7 with a full-service lab and will be an extension of the main OLOL campus on Essen Lane. The deal is part of the state's renegotiated contract with the OLOL system to provide charity care in Baton Rouge.

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LINK

Essentially, it seems like an addition to the Urgent Care facility that they are calling an ER. Like the guy who works for OLOL said, anything above urgent care level illnesses will be transferred to the Lake and no traumas will ever be brought there. If they walk in with a GSW, they'll be transferred to OLOL on Essen via ambulance.

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Gary Chambers, a co-chair of the blue ribbon commission, asked the governor at his news conference why Edwards did not choose Champion and pointed out Our Lady of the Lake's past hesitancy to build in north Baton Rouge.

Edwards doubled down on the state's partnership with Our Lady of the Lake. He said it made sense to use Our Lady of the Lake, the state's built-in partner for healthcare, to build an emergency room instead of a for-profit company based in Texas.

"My commitment was to the people of Baton Rouge, not to any healthcare provider," Edwards said. "And I certainly looked at the proposal which came from Champion, which doesn't run an emergency room anywhere, doesn't have a transfer agreement in Baton Rouge, runs boutique specialty hospitals that typically do not take Medicaid, and has not been approved by CMS to deliver emergency room care."

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facts and logic.....gary chambers' kryptonite

how can a bankrupt state afford that?

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experience with these satellite ERs is that they are glorified triage centers.

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True to an extent. But with medication, diagnostics, and stabilization

So what happens when a trauma victim/ heart attack victim is sent to the new standalone ER, then dies in the ambulance on the way to the main OLOL Campus?

Serious question as my understanding of these liability issues is minimal. This is assuming these patients walk-in/ transport themselves to the standalone ER.

I'm pretty sure the new ER will have all kinds of signage near the entrance to let people know what they cannot treat and how they will only stabilize enough to transfer.

If someone still goes there and dies....don't see how that makes the standalone ER liable.

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So what happens when a trauma victim/ heart attack victim is sent to the new standalone ER, then dies in the ambulance on the way to the main OLOL Campus?

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You hope ambulance crews are educated enough not to bring a heart attack or trauma here, not even for "stabilization". These pts need operative intervention within the first hour.. as for the general population who will walk in with a heart attack or GSW, god help them.

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what happens when a trauma victim/ heart attack victim is sent to the new standalone ER, then dies in the ambulance on the way to the main OLOL Campus?

Serious question as my understanding of these liability issues is minimal. This is assuming these patients walk-in/ transport themselves to the standalone ER.

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I work at both a hospital based and private owned facility. You CALL 911 for a GSW. That's what I as the RN in charge will do. You provide stabilization only in these cases.

A heart attack is different. Is he stable enough for transport? Doesn't matter. We don't have a catch lab. BUT we have retavase and all other stabilizing meds while the Cath lab team is being assembled at the home facility. If the patient is obviously on deaths door? You call 911. You try to establish as much ease of transfer as you can to the other facility, but you call 911. The mistake was the patients to begin with in driving and not calling 911. That problem is never going away. I've drug several dead people out of cars at the regular hospital. "We could get here faster than 911". Only by a minute or two, and you don't have a paramedic, meds, and a defibrillator?

Private ERs are different. If ever a real question? Call 911. As long as you can justify it being "interest of the patient" it should never be a problem.

Urgent cares have the same issues. Train wrecks walk into urgent cares all the time.

LINK

This was a good article covering the situation. It indicates that all ERs aren't created equal and that there are different destinations depending on "what ails" so to speak.

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EMS transport data mirrors the changes in ER options. In 2012, it took paramedics and emergency medical technicians 13 minutes and 32 seconds, on average, to drive from where they picked up a patient to the hospital. The transport time rose by 32 seconds the year the Earl K. Long Medical Center closed, transferring care of their patients to Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center on Essen Lane. It increased again to reach an average of 15 minutes and 40 seconds last year, during which Baton Rouge General’s ER closed on Florida Boulevard in March.

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Hospital heads point out that most people in dire emergencies — such as trauma victims who have gotten in car wrecks, who are bleeding from gunshot wounds or who have fallen down — would skip over an emergency room in north Baton Rouge regardless. Those patients need to be taken to Our Lady of the Lake’s Trauma Center in south Baton Rouge, which has the needed array of specialists on staff at all times that other hospitals do not have for the most acute emergencies

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Proximity to an emergency room, rather than the level of care, is most important in four cases: when paramedics are unable to find airways and make patients breathe; when patients are in traumatic cardiac arrest; when more than 40 percent of a person’s body is burned and they have no IV or cannot breathe; and when air is escaping out of a patient’s lungs and into their chest. The Louisiana Emergency Response Network directs those patients to the nearest emergency room. A smaller emergency room might create an airway on a patient before he or she is transferred to a trauma center.

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