The Huntsville Item, Huntsville, TX

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April 3, 2011

Sally Nelson: HMH to launch screenings of its ER patients

The Huntsville Item

HUNTSVILLE — It’s not the heart attacks or strokes that alarm the ER staff at Huntsville Memorial Hospital. It’s the minor maladies, the daily deluge of coughs, colds, toothaches, and even hangnails that clog their emergency room.

As the provider of last resort, hospital emergency rooms have for decades accepted thousands of nonemergency cases and swallowed the cost. For the most part, these patients have nowhere else to go, no insurance, and a lack of funds.

That is starting to change. Huntsville Memorial Hospital will soon launch a screening system for its emergency room. Patients will be screened to determine if they have an emergency medical condition as defined by federal legislation that requires hospitals to stabilize emergency patients regardless of their ability to pay. If the patient’s condition is not deemed a medical emergency, the patient will be referred to their primary care physician, the HMH Medical Clinic or they will be given the option to stay and pay for their care.

If you are truly an emergency patient, there is no question that you will be treated as such. However, this new screening system aims to reduce the number of patients who use the emergency room for services that could be better provided in another setting. We would then expect to see a decrease in wait times and to provide better care to those with true medical emergencies.

HMH plans to use mid-level practitioners to assess patients.

“These practitioners can screen patients and actually take care of people or treat some things without even sending them back to the emergency room,” said Susan White, HMH’s chief nursing officer.

The ER uses a nationally recognized triage system for classifying emergency patients by the severity of their illness, not the time of arrival, ensuring prompt treatment. The convenient bedside registration of patients also decreases treatment time.

  Across the state, hospitals are beginning to triage patients as they hit the door to determine if they are emergent or not.

As always, our mission at HMH is to provide the very best care possible to this community and we are willing to make whatever changes are necessary to ensure that this happens.



Sally Nelson is chief executive officer of Huntsville Memorial Hospital.

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