Improving Our Emergency Department

GBMC has an outstanding Emergency Department and the community knows this. While the region is seeing about the same number of ED visits as last year, our ED visits have increased by 10%! This is because people know the quality of our care and that we are working to become the healthcare system where every patient gets the care we want for our own loved ones. Emergency Medical Technicians and ambulance drivers know that we are welcoming to them and that we are actively working to improve our efficiency every day.

We also know that we need to make changes to our physical plant. From all the sounds coming from our Emergency Department concourse, you can tell that there are renovations taking place. We started this work a few weeks ago.

The changes are designed to reduce delays in admitting patients by improving flow. Stacey McGreevy, our Vice President of Support Services, Russ Sadler, our Manager of Capital Resources and their teams have been working hard to make the transition as easy as possible for our patients and employees.

The Emergency Department Entrance renovation will allow for wider hallways, greater patient privacy, a re-designed registration area, and improvements to overall workflow to provide better patient through-put during the registration process. By relocating the main registration desk, creating more efficient triage rooms, and adding a secondary waiting area for triage and registration, we will be better able to register patients without having long lines resulting in cramped hallways. The design team included physicians, nurses, and registrars.

I want to thank everyone involved with these renovations as well as our patients and employees for their patience while we improve.  The target date for completion of the project is June 30, 2019.

THANK YOU TO OUR SOCIAL WORKERS!!!
March is National Professional Social Work month and I want to extend my appreciation to our fabulous GBMC social workers.  I am always amazed by the resourcefulness and fortitude of this group. Our social workers deal daily with the many challenges that come with the social determinants of health and without them, our system would come to a near standstill.
They have helped GBMC attain low readmission rates and have designed a system that assures that our patients with advanced illness receive the continued support they need after they leave our hospital. Please take the time to say, “thank you” for all they do!

P.S. March 29 is Doctors’ Day – do you have a physician you’d like to honor or recognize for exceptional care? If so, please go to https://www.gbmc.org/doctorsday