Terra Linda Kaiser Opens New Emergency Center Doors in June 2014
Written by Alyssa Clark
New Emergency Center for Terra Linda Kaiser to Open its Doors in June 2014
It’s not every day that people are “pumped up” about the Emergency Room— but in June of 2014, the ribbon will be cut on the ongoing Terra Linda Kaiser campus’ construction of its new and improved Emergency Room. This new, multi-million dollar project will pave the way for decreased patient wait time, and a better overall Emergency Room experience. The only thing patients have to wait for now, is the completion date.
Proposed in December of 2010, the San Rafael Planning Commission unanimously approved the project in April of 2011 as the workings for this 17,550 square foot structure went underway. Replacing the existing general services building, the new Emergency Room is sure to be true to the “Kaiser experience” by being an accommodating, helpful and strong resource to its patients and their families.
“It’s going to give us almost three times the space we have now” said Patricia Kendall, Kaiser medical group’s administrator. Declining to state how much the project will cost in total, Kendall continued to say, “it’ll give us bigger rooms that will be more comfortable for our patients”.
Being pushed back 6 months due to design changes, about 8 percent of the center is complete now, as crews have finally finished the concrete pouring of the parking lot (equip with six electric charging stations) and laying the underground plumbing lines for the new building. Gary Mizono, Kaiser physician-in-chief, is especially tuned into the Emergency Room’s future in the areas of its efficiency and minimizing patients’ wait time. Terra Linda’s physicians hope to do this by prioritizing the less severe injuries from the more severe, and officials hope this kind of systemized service will help to move people in and out of emergency room doors in half the standard time. Officials like Kendall and Mizono agree that Emergency waiting rooms should be full of patients’ families, not patients themselves.
“We’re trying to make an oxymoron out of the term ‘waiting room’”, Kendall states.
Future goals for the Emergency Room include: becoming approved for trauma care, serving as a certified stroke center and becoming a receiving center for patients with severe heart conditions.
"We're very excited to have a brand-new facility to take care of our members and participate in the county's trauma program," Mizono said of the hospitals commitment to service and reducing patients’ wait time. Other improvements on the horizon for this Kaiser center include moving more testing capabilities to becoming more readily available to its patients, which will ultimately better the patients’ overall health and experience while at Terra Linda Hospital. "We may expand our cardiac catheterization lab and move an MRI into the building, so we'll have an MRI in-house," Kendall said.
Yet another positive in the addition of the Terra Linda Emergency Room, will be detracting patient traffic from the overly-populated Marin General Hospital; this addition allows for a second wave of support in accommodating the large daily number of Emergency Room visitors. Also, trying desperately to diffuse the long-ongoing issue of parking around the hospital, the newly built 4 level parking structure will provide ongoing support to this parking problem, providing new spaces and less traffic for doctors and visiting patients alike.
About the Author
Alyssa Clark is the Editor of Healthcare Global