The Capital Campaign for Emergency and Urgent Care Services at AKMC
The current Emergency Department at Alle-Kiski Medical Center was built 25 years ago to handle 20,000 patient visits per year. However, more than 34,000 patients were treated at AKMC’s Emergency Department last year, and another 14,000 urgent care patients were treated at our partner facility, Citizens Ambulatory Care Center.
With 12 beds in the Emergency Department, AKMC exceeds 2,750 patient visits per bed per year – the industry standard is 1,500 visits per bed annually.
Volume projections indicate that the Emergency Department will treat more than 36,000 patients in fiscal year 2008, an increase of 10 percent in just one year. Despite our undersized facility, AKMC has worked hard to implement strategies to improve efficiency, effectiveness and throughput in the last several years; however, these improvements alone cannot overcome the capacity deficiency that AKMC faces.
The Emergency Department Renovation and Expansion Project calls for enlarging the size of the ED from 9,000 square feet to more than 20,000 square feet and doubling the number of patient beds to 24.
Other improvements and features for patients and families who utilize the new Emergency Department are:
- Bedside registration to reduce wait time and allow quicker access to medical treatment;
- Specialized treatments rooms for pediatric, cardiac, orthopedic, psychiatric and gynecologic patients will improve efficiency in treatment and through-put;
- Enlarged waiting areas for emergency patients and family members and outpatient registration will improve patient satisfaction;
- Redesign of the Emergency Department and main lobby entranceways will ensure a greater level of privacy and improve patient flow;
- A seclusion room for psychiatric patients will allow for observation and safety;
- An isolation room will decrease the potential for the spread of communicable disease;
- A decontamination room will treat patients involved in industrial accidents;
- A bereavement room will allow families privacy during critical times; and
- Quicker access to diagnostic technology such as medical imaging will improve patient wait times and satisfaction.
AKMC also provides medical command to 14 ambulance companies across the Alle-Kiski Valley. The new design will include the addition of one more ambulance bay, bringing the total to four, and an enlargement of the ambulance parking areas to reduce the traffic congestion that is experience during high volume times.
These improvements and features will:
- Provide quicker access to medical treatment
- Increase flexibility and improve efficiencies in patient wait times
- Improve patient flow from triage to discharge/disposition
- Increase access to triage nurses by family members
- Improve entranceways to the emergency area, outpatient area and main lobby
- Increase patient and family privacy and satisfaction
- Allow for easier management of ambulance traffic into the ED
- Ensure compliance with current codes regarding space and volume
