MEMORIAL HEALTH officials unveiled their first major improvement plans in years Friday, a $40 million proposal that includes big changes to its cramped and heavily utilized emergency department.
This proposal is long overdue. When it comes to life over death, it should improve the odds.
Memorial is the Level One trauma center for a 28-county region of Georgia and neighboring South Carolina. Its emergency room gets the worst of the worst. When a person’s life is on the line because of a motor vehicle accident, multiple gunshot wounds or other serious trauma in this area, Memorial and its specialists who are available around the clock give that individual the best shot at survival.
At the same time, the ER is the conduit for thousands of patients who seek medical help for a range of problems. This isn’t the place where people should go for routine or non-emergency care. An ER visit is far more costly than going to an outpatient clinic, especially one set up to handle people with no insurance.
Yet Memorial’s ER handles about 100,000 visits per year. That’s an average of about 274 visits per day, or about 11 visits per hour on a 24-hour basis.
That’s a large volume. Yet according to Memorial President and CEO Maggie Gill, the ER was designed to accommodate 45,000 annual visits. That boils down to five visits per hour.
So in other words, Memorial is handling more than twice the number of annual visits for which it was built. Given the cramped physical constraints, it’s a credit to the hospital, its ER physicians, its staff and others that they’ve been able to provide the necessary level of care that patients need.
At the same time, the ER is the front door for a lot of hospital admissions. Many people get their first impressions of Memorial here — and they’re often negative.
Fortunately, that’s about to change for the better.
Ms. Gill, in a Friday presentation to Chatham County commissioners, said Memorial’s latest capital improvement plan includes $15 million for renovation and expansion of the ER. Once finished, the treatment area will be almost doubled.
But that’s not the only area targeted for an upgrade. Other proposals include $11.5 million to expand surgical services by adding one in-patient and four out-patient operating rooms, $9 million to expand the Heart and Vascular Institute to include additional critical and intermediate care beds, $2.6 million to expand the neonatal unit.
Another item — a $2.2 million renovation of The Children’s Hospital — has been financed by private donations to the Memorial Health Foundation and has been completed, Ms. Gill said. That’s excellent news.
Memorial was founded to serve the people of Chatham County. Over the years, that mission has grown as Memorial is now a regional hospital, serving people who live outside Savannah and who often lack medical services in their home counties. Thus Memorial picks up the slack.
Earlier this year, the county commission agreed to guarantee about $183 million in bond debt for Memorial’s parent company. This helped free up capital so Memorial could afford to make physical improvements
“We’ve told the county we were targeting what services would best serve our community and were in need,” Ms. Gill said.
Like other health-care providers, the hospital has been looking for cost-saving efficiencies. But unlike those that are for-profit, Memorial’s indigent care load puts additional pressure on its bottom line.
The ER improvements slated over the next 18 to 24 months represent a significant investment in the public’s access to life-saving services. Credit the hospital’s board, its administrators and county commissioners for making it happen.