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June 14, 2011
Williamson County gets first high-level trauma center
Residents of Williamson County now have a high-level trauma center that has met national standards, and a second, competing center could receive the designation soon.
“We’re all very excited about this,” said Dr. Neel Ware, trauma medical director at Seton Medical Center Williamson.
Ware’s hospital and St. David’s Round Rock Medical Center announced two years ago that they were seeking Level II trauma designation to better serve residents of Williamson County and far northern Travis County who have bad injuries or medical emergencies. The two hospitals geared up to start offering trauma services, and Seton Williamson got the designation first.
In the process, both hospitals have had to demonstrate that they can take care of most dire emergencies.
Williamson County paramedics were transporting 600 patients a year to University Medical Center Brackenridge, which graduated from being a Level II trauma center to a Level I in August 2009, said Williamson County Emergency Medical Services shift commander Kevin Krienke. Since the two hospitals began vying for Level II status, EMS has transported only about 10 to 15 patients out of the county a year, he said.
A Level II center can provide almost all of the same care as a Level I center, except for a few sophisticated procedures. Level I trauma centers also are distinguished by their academic research.
Seton Williamson underwent a review in March by the American College of Surgeons, which verified that it met the standards of a Level II trauma center. The Texas Department of State Health Services then conferred the status earlier this month.
The Round Rock hospital expects to undergo a similar College of Surgeons review in October, said Dr. David Martin, chief medical officer there. If all goes well, it could receive the designation later this year or early next year, he said.
Having trauma centers for patients in Williamson County “truly saves lives,” Krienke said.
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March 7, 2011
Spend your next ER visit waiting from home?
Patients heading to Seton Northwest Hospital with a minor emergency night might want to spend a few minutes online at home before spending hours in the emergency room.
The hospital is launching a pilot program to test at-home registration to cut down on the amount of time people wait to be seen by a doctor for minor emergencies once they arrive at the hospital.
Be aware that registering from home is not a good idea if you’re having chest pain, a stroke or another emergency that requires a quick response. But for people who have the flu, a sprained ankle or some mishap that could cause a long wait, Seton officials said they think people would prefer the comforts of home to an ER waiting room. As a result, they are introducing SetonER.com, an online registration and check-in system at Seton Northwest, 11113 Research Blvd.
“SetonER.com is designed for people with non-life threatening medical conditions,” Scott Fuller, vice president and chief operating officer of Seton Northwest Hospital, said in a written statement.
St. David’s HealthCare and Scott & White do not currently offer online registration services, spokeswomen for those hospitals said.
Seton Northwest is listed as the first Texas hospital to use the InQuickER service, based in Nashville, Tenn.
I clicked on the link Seton provided a few minutes ago and was given a time of 4:30 p.m. to arrive at the hospital for my minor emergency. I would pay $4.99 for the convenience of registering online and getting my place in line held. Once I arrived at the hospital at the appointed time, Seton said it guarantees I wouldn’t have to be in the waiting room longer than 15 minutes. Otherwise, I would get the $4.99 service fee refunded.
Seton does not describe what kind of ailments are considered a minor emergency.
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March 30, 2009
Nine people visited ER 2,678 times in 6 years, costing $3 million
UPDATE IN LAST PARAGRAPH ABOUT A MORE COMPLETE PRINT STORY (PROBABLY NOT TUESDAY)
A seemingly routine report delivered by the Integrated Care Collaboration at a meeting late last week contained an astonishing nugget that made me wonder: Am I hearing this correctly?
I got the report afterward and discovered that indeed, I was.
In six years, eight people from Austin and one from Luling racked up 2,678 emergency room visits in Central Texas, costing hospitals, taxpayers and others $3 million. One of the patients spent more than a third of last year in the ER: 145 days. That same patient totaled 554 ER visits from 2003 to 2008.
What’s up with that?
The report didn’t include details about the reasons for all those ER visits or identify the patients (because of privacy laws). Ann Kitchen, executive director of the ICC — a nonprofit that works with hospitals and other providers that care for the uninsured and low-income people in the region — said all nine speak English and three are homeless. Five are women whose average age is 40 and four are men whose average age is 50. Seven have a mental health diagnosis and eight have a drug abuse diagnosis.
She gave the report to the Travis County Healthcare District board, which is seeking to intervene with patients and better manage where they go for care. ER care is expensive and supposed to be for people experiencing true medical emergencies.
Kitchen’s organization has a Central Texas database of 750,000 unique patients and found that in addition to the nine people her report featured, 900 frequent users — people who visited the ER six times in three months — had 2,123 preventable visits costing more than $2 million.
Kitchen said that by “preventable” the ICC means they could have received care in a different setting, before they needed to visit an ER.
These patients were going to hospitals across Central Texas, Kitchen said.
Find out more about this issue in a future issue of the Statesman.
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