The Marion Emergency Care Center at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth opened to serve the greater Tarrant County area in January 2014. "A dream fulfilled, it's the best thing we were ever able to do for our community for our staff, our docs and our patients," says Judy Horton, R.N., M.S.N., C.E.N., the facility's Emergency Department Director. "The least sick should not have to wait on the most sick to be seen, they should be able to be in an area where their emergency, albeit not life threatening maybe, is still handled expeditiously and quickly and back to home," says Barbara Van Wart, R.N., B.S.N., Nurse Manager. "One of the things I think that's going to be really helpful is how our diagnostics are all in one place now. MRI machines are right around the corner instead of in another building, 2 CAT scanners right there, sono right there, all the things that we need are right in our back pocket," she says. "You know this project's been a long time in coming. We've operated out of 27,000 square feet of space, but we've seen over 100,000 visits, and so it's the staff, they're just phenomenal to make that happen and to get the satisfaction results, patient satisfaction results and staff satisfaction results that we've been able to accomplish," says Lillie Biggins, R.N., F.A.C.H.E., the president of Texas Health Fort Worth. "We provide excellent care and we always endeavor to provide excellent care. We've been working in an ER that is overcrowded; sometimes privacy is difficult to obtain in the ER, but we've managed for years, and the number of ER patients that we see has gone up every year and it continues to go up," says Brenda Lobley, M.D., the hospital's chief of Emergency Medicine. "The delivery was great, but it wasn't a very comfortable place to work and for some patients at some times it wasn't a comfortable place to be there, and certainly there were issues with privacy and whether family could be there or not and feel comfortable," says Harold Berenzweig, M.D., a system executive vice president and clinical zone leader. "This project at Fort Worth has been dreamt about and contemplated really for a number of years," says Oscar Amparan, system executive vice president and zone operations leader. "It's a great example of THR coming together with the community, with our employees, with our partners and physician partners and create this incredible project and bring it to fruition," he continues. "Many ERs throughout the country were visited, best practices were identified, all of that resulted in what we see now, which is a beautiful new 75,000-square-foot, 100-bed facility. It is truly state of the art." "The way this is set up now is set up by treatment, so you have your diagnostic treatment, and then you'll have you quick care and so it's designed to take care of the level of acuity that we'll see in this hospital." Biggins continues. "This facility is really built for patient flow, and it's built to enhance the ability of our staff to take care of those patients. So I think it's reasonable to say that everybody here is quite proud of the fact that we have an opportunity to be here to take care of the community," says John Geesbreght, M.D., Emergency Medical Director. "The simulation training area is a simulation of four acute-care clinical areas, including an ambulance, to simulate pre-hospital setting, an emergency department which simulates the resuscitation rooms, an operating room and also an ICU, intensive care unit," says Debbie Krauser, M.S.N., director of the Fort Worth Emergency Services Collaboration. "We can recreate those low-frequency, high-intensity situations, very similar to what pilots go through, many airlines require that pilots go through simulation training every six months to recreate situations that they may not ever encounter in their career. But if they do you want to make sure that they know how to handle them correctly," she continues. "This simulation training center is built for the Fort Worth community, and so hospital providers, nurses, physicians, medical students, respiratory therapists, any medical professional that impacts acute care and emergency services are invited to participate in our simulation training center." "We have a big faith at this organization we call Texas Health Fort Worth, and we got a big result!" says Biggins. "I really believe it's a sentinel event. It's a magnificent facility and quite frankly we've been working very very hard, every aspect of the care givers, to match its capability," says Geesbreght. "I just think it's a fantastic addition to Texas Health Fort Worth, and the community in general," says Berenzweig. "So hopefully when they get here they're gonna be blown away and they'll think whoa, this is awesome," says Biggins. "So we're faster, we're better and we certainly are prettier!" Texas Health Resources http://www.TexasHealth.org 1-877-THR-WELL

• published: 19 Feb 2014
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