Emergency Department

Mercy Health System plans to start construction next week on a $4 million project to approximately double the size of the Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital emergency department to ease overcrowding. The hospital needs the enhanced facility to handle an increasing number of patients arriving for emergency care, said Mark T. O'Neil Jr., the system's president and chief executive officer. With the additional eight beds called for in the expansion plan, for example, the department would not have had to go on "divert status" yesterday morning, said Beverly Gribben, emergency-department nurse manager.

If you need evidence of how much the western Main Line is growing that doesn't involve housing statistics, just look at its hospitals. Paoli Memorial, Bryn Mawr, Phoenixville and Chester County Hospitals are all on the cusp of major expansions and renovations to improve services, modernize facilities, and, most of all, make room for exponential increases in emergency-department visits and patient admissions. Paoli, for example, is on track to add 126 private patient rooms, expand its emergency department, and add 14 operating rooms.

When Joseph Morelli's medical history popped up on her computer screen early one Sunday this month, Meg Greene, a nurse case manager in Bryn Mawr Hospital's emergency department, immediately recognized that he might benefit from her specialty: palliative care. Greene is part of a small but growing group of medical providers who say many patients in emergency departments are not appropriate for the all-out rescue medicine these units are designed to deliver. Instead, they are suffering from the pain and inexorable decline of cancer and chronic illness or old age, and may be better served by care aimed at comfort, not cure.

An $87 million project to dramatically upgrade clinical and lobby facilities at Lankenau Hospital here is poised to begin moving from drawing board toward reality this year. An estimated $75 million for this construction, initially announced last summer when officials outlined their strategic plan, will come from the nonprofit Lankenau Foundation, which supports hospital programs. The rest is to come from fund-raising and revenues. Officials also want to add a fifth and sixth floor to Lankenau's four-story Pew wing, to house an additional 94 in-patient beds.

For years, hospitals have responded to crowded emergency rooms and longer waits for beds by building ever-bigger buildings and spending vast sums - up to $2 million per bed. But expansion hasn't solved the problem, and the costs are becoming unsustainable. So some hospitals are trying a new tactic: Working more efficiently around the clock. This month, the New Jersey Hospital Association received a $7 million grant, in part to hire a former Soviet industrial engineer whose forte is smoothing out the flow of hospital patients so they can be treated more efficiently.

The Philadelphia VA Medical Center is about to undergo a huge face-lift - and quite a few nips and tucks, too. About 40 renovation and construction projects totaling $40 million are scheduled to unfold at the West Philadelphia center, on University Avenue near Baltimore Avenue, during the next 18 months, said Dale Warman, a spokesman for the Philadelphia VA. Chief among the projects is a $6 million remodel of the center's emergency department, which...

St. Mary Medical Center, in Langhorne, said it will build a $20.5 million, 50-bed acute rehabilitation hospital in partnership with Centerre Healthcare Corp., of Nashville, Tenn.   The new rehabilitation facility will go up on the site of the former Neshaminy Middle School across the street from St. Mary's main campus.   When the new facility is completed next spring, St. Mary will convert its existing 31 bed rehabilitation unit into one with private rooms for patients in the main hospital, St. Mary said.

Aria Health is planning a $37 million expansion of the emergency department at its Torresdale campus with the help of a $3 million grant from Pennsylvania's Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program, the health system's chief executive said Wednesday. The project, which will increase the size of the Torresdale emergency department to 42 beds from 30 beds, is slated for completion in March 2014, Aria's CEO Kathleen Kinslow said at a news conference. A year ago, Aria-Torresdale completed a $9 million, 25 percent expansion of its parking garage, also with the help of state money.

Catholic Health East New Jersey has agreed to build an emergency department at Deborah Heart and Lung Center that the two hospital organizations expect will serve 10,000 to 20,000 patients a year over the next three years. The department, expected to open Jan. 1, 2010, will be operated by Lourdes Medical Center of Burlington County, a Catholic Health East affiliate in Willingboro. Lourdes and Deborah, in Browns Mills, are 21 miles apart. John Ernst, Deborah's president and chief executive officer, said his hospital saw a need for more emergency care in the region, especially as nearby Fort Dix and McGuire Air Force Base have grown.

As the weather turned warmer and then colder again late last month, the emergency department at Chester County Hospital was getting busier. "We are beginning to see a lot of respiratory infections ... the children are brought in over the weekends, the adults come in during the week," said Anne-Marie Guthrie, an emergency department educator at the hospital. The increase in patient volume, said Teresa Rougeaux, hospital spokeswoman, is due to two factors: the growth of Chester County and the increase in the elderly population.

St. Mary Medical Center, in Langhorne, said it will build a $20.5 million, 50-bed acute rehabilitation hospital in partnership with Centerre Healthcare Corp., of Nashville, Tenn.   The new rehabilitation facility will go up on the site of the former Neshaminy Middle School across the street from St. Mary's main campus.   When the new facility is completed next spring, St. Mary will convert its existing 31 bed rehabilitation unit into one with private rooms for patients in the main hospital, St. Mary said.

NEW YORK - From the Rocky Mountains to New England, hospitals are swamped with people with flu symptoms. Some medical centers are turning away visitors or making them wear face masks, and one Allentown, Pa., hospital set up a tent outside its emergency room to deal with the feverish patients. Flu season in the United States has struck early and, in many places, hard. While flu normally doesn't blanket the country until late January or February, it is already widespread in 40 states, with about 30 reporting some major hot spots.

Male pedestrians at risk More than twice as many men as women die in pedestrian-vehicle accidents. Now researchers have partly determined why. Writing online last month in the journal Injury Prevention, investigators considered the contribution of three factors: distance walked, number of accidents, and fatalities per accident. Researchers using data from a variety of sources found that men and women walk similar distances and that men are involved in slightly more accidents per mile.

  The decision by federal and state regulators to oppose Reading Health System's proposed $43 million purchase of the physician-owned Surgical Institute of Reading suggests that a provision of the Affordable Care Act could keep health expenditures higher than they need to be. The Federal Trade Commission and the Pennsylvania attorney general announced Friday that they would sue to block the deal. Reading Health System said Monday that the deal had been terminated to avoid an expensive court fight.

Einstein Healthcare Network's new hospital in Montgomery County has all the bells and whistles one would expect in a new medical center: Wall-to-wall windows, separate WiFi networks for staff and visitors, and all private rooms. But among the most carefully thought-out areas of the facility, opening Saturday and called Einstein Medical Center Montgomery, is a set of eight rooms next to the emergency department. That's where Einstein will treat patients who do not qualify for inpatient admission according to insurers, including Medicare, but who need to be observed for up to 48 hours.

Aria Health is planning a $37 million expansion of the emergency department at its Torresdale campus with the help of a $3 million grant from Pennsylvania's Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program, the health system's chief executive said Wednesday. The project, which will increase the size of the Torresdale emergency department to 42 beds from 30 beds, is slated for completion in March 2014, Aria's CEO Kathleen Kinslow said at a news conference. A year ago, Aria-Torresdale completed a $9 million, 25 percent expansion of its parking garage, also with the help of state money.

IN THE REGION Aria plans $37M expansion Aria Health is planning a $37 million expansion of the emergency department at its Torresdale campus with the help of a $3 million grant from Pennsylvania's Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program, the health system's chief executive said Wednesday. The project, which will increase the Torresdale emergency department to 42 beds from 30 beds, is slated for completion in March 2014, Aria CEO Kathleen Kinslow said at a news conference.

For years, hospitals have responded to crowded emergency rooms and longer waits for beds by building ever-bigger buildings and spending vast sums - up to $2 million per bed. But expansion hasn't solved the problem, and the costs are becoming unsustainable. So some hospitals are trying a new tactic: Working more efficiently around the clock. This month, the New Jersey Hospital Association received a $7 million grant, in part to hire a former Soviet industrial engineer whose forte is smoothing out the flow of hospital patients so they can be treated more efficiently.

When Joseph Morelli's medical history popped up on her computer screen early one Sunday this month, Meg Greene, a nurse case manager in Bryn Mawr Hospital's emergency department, immediately recognized that he might benefit from her specialty: palliative care. Greene is part of a small but growing group of medical providers who say many patients in emergency departments are not appropriate for the all-out rescue medicine these units are designed to deliver. Instead, they are suffering from the pain and inexorable decline of cancer and chronic illness or old age, and may be better served by care aimed at comfort, not cure.