Emergency Department

If you haven't visited Carroll Hospital Center recently, you might want to know that the emergency department has relocated toward the front of the hospital, saving you the drive around the parking lot. Three years ago the hospital underwent an $80 million renovation, during which the space formerly occupied by the emergency department was transformed into an award-winning outpatient center. The ED doubled in size, and added televisions to every room in the 30,000-square-foot space. A five-story tower was built with the latest medical technology and efficient layouts.

After caring for patients in cramped quarters for years, North Arundel Hospital has a new $8.5 million emergency department with twice the number of beds and new testing equipment to treat a patient caseload that has been growing steadily for more than a decade.The 36-bed facility at the Glen Burnie hospital has a computerized tomography (CT) scanner for specialized X-rays, a decontamination room and a spacious waiting room decorated in peach and turquoise.Susan Ward, the hospital vice president who oversaw the two-year project, said North Arundel originally planned to expand its old emergency room but opted to build a 28,000-square-foot facility instead.

HealthSouth Corp., the Birmingham, Ala., company that operates more than 1,800 outpatient rehabilitation and surgery centers nationally, will manage the rehabilitation programs at Sinai Hospital and Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center, Sinai and Levindale announced yesterday.Sinai's president, Neil Meltzer, said the deal was "not an outsourcing, but more of a partnership."He said managed care insurers like to contract for rehabilitation with large operators such as HealthSouth, so the new arrangement should bring Sinai more patients.

When NBC agreed this week to pay $13 million per episode of "ER," Dr. David Meyers, chief of emergency medicine at north Baltimore's Sinai Hospital, had to chuckle: Sinai's brand-new, state-of-the-art emergency department cost $16 million to build -- a mere $3 million more than its fictional counterpart's weekly fee.With $13 million, "you could buy an ED," Meyers says. "It's an incredible amount of money."For the typical citizen, Warner Bros.' astronomical asking price for the rights to air "ER" may be one more ho-hum statistic in a universe where Hollywood stars and sports figures collectively earn enough to pay off the national debt.

Having outgrown their downtown Annapolis building, officials at Anne Arundel Medical Center broke ground yesterday on a $65 million hospital in Parole to be completed in 2001.The new hospital will feature an expanded emergency room, a critical-care unit double the size of its current one and several design features that will give patients and family members extra comfort, including courtyards for short walks and comfortable chairs."It's a way to help us serve an ever-increasing market," said Mary Lou Baker, AAMC spokeswoman.

PHILADELPHIA - It's just before 7 a.m., and the changing of the guard is beginning at Episcopal Hospital's Emergency Department.Maddie McKenna, the triage nurse, and Jo Smith, the patient assets representative, take their places in adjoining offices within shouting distance of the nursing station, the department's nerve center.They will be the first people most patients see this day, once they make it past the locked door and uniformed guard.McKenna will decide how sick patients are and how quickly they will be seen.

Parking czar must find spaces for downtown hotelWhy has the city created the position of parking coordinator when it allows a hotel to be built at 300 E. Pratt Street with only 200 parking spaces ("Drivers seek out shrinking car space," Aug. 13)?Will the new parking czar's job be to sell us the idea that the city is working on our behalf, when the results will be worse than the current situation?Where will the 200-plus cars currently using the lot on the property park? Where will guests in the 600 rooms park?

A little Nordstrom. A little Disney. A little Mayo Clinic.In designing its glitzy new emergency room, Sinai Hospital is "trying to marry sophisticated clinical care with an exaggerated sense of caring for the whole family," says Warren A. Green, Sinai's president and chief executive officer.The $16 million emergency department, which will begin treating patients Dec. 16, will offer valet parking, private waiting rooms and a concierge, who can arrange baby-sitting or dog-walking for harried families (and who can be reached by videophone)

Suddenly, hospitals throughout Baltimore are putting up big money to heal an old wound: Their antiquated and in some cases, hopelessly cramped, emergency rooms.And Gloria Barlow, clinical manager for Maryland General Hospital's emergency department, couldn't be happier.The ER in which she has worked for 29 years is a throwback to another time.To get to her cubbyhole of an office in the ER, Barlow must pass through another tiny office where emergency room patients are evaluated. Outside, patients lie on gurneys in a hallway.

Patients who are treated at Carroll County General Hospital's emergency room can expect more attention from doctors and a greater emphasis on follow-up care, now that the emergency department is under the management of a new physician group, hospital officials say.Emergency Medical Associates, a Rockville-based physician group, assumed leadership of the hospital's emergency department a month ago, replacing Professional Emergency Physicians, the hospital's provider...

An emergency-room physicians group at Anne Arundel Medical Center will donate $1 million toward a new emergency department that is being built as part of a larger expansion at AAMC, the hospital has announced. The donation by Doctor's Emergency Services, a group of 25 physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants that provides health care to emergency-room patients at the hospital, is particularly noteworthy because it comes during a time of "nervous uncertainly about personal income" for those in the medical field, according to Lisa Hillman, executive director of the AAMC Foundation and chair for the national Association for Health Care Philanthropy.

The Maryland Insurance Administration is investigating complaints that some psychiatric patients have been forced to wait hours - in some cases, several days - to be hospitalized because their insurance companies have not responded quickly when emergency room doctors called to verify coverage.The Baltimore health department has sent the state agency information about 10 cases in recent months in which patients endured long waits to be admitted to hospitals because their insurance companies could not be reached for approval.

* The Greater Baltimore Medical Center has named Dr. Robin Motter-Mast, a Cock-eysville physician, chairwoman of the Department of Family Medicine. Motter-Mast, who is certified in family medicine and caring for patients of all ages, joined GBMC in 2005 and works at the Hunt Valley practice of Dr. Mark Lamos and Associates. A physician practicing for 10 years, Motter-Mast graduated from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and completed an osteopathic internship at Delaware County Memorial Hospital/Crozer Chester Medical Center and a residency in family medicine at the University of Maryland Medical System.

It's not unusual for 50 to 60 patients to fill the waiting room at Anne Arundel Medical Center's emergency department, built less than eight years ago. Some are connected to intravenous units or holding icepacks but cannot get an open room. "We moved into an emergency room that was already too small," said Dr. David Mooradian, a physician at the Annapolis-area hospital. The same is true at Baltimore Washington Medical Center in Glen Burnie, where the emergency department was expanded in 1999.

Feeling awful? Could be the flu. Influenza activity has been climbing across Maryland in recent weeks, and several Baltimore-area hospitals report emergency rooms crowded with patients complaining of fever, headache, coughs and body aches. "We've been extremely busy. We noticed it cropping up a week or so ago," said Dr. Neal Frankel, assistant chairman of the emergency department at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson. "We're in the thick of it right now." Two miles south, at Greater Baltimore Medical Center, emergency department Chairman Dr. Jeffrey Sternlicht said his staff sees 20 to 30 cases a day - a bigger surge of cases than he remembers from the past three or four years.

Robert Aims is the new nursing home administrator at Keswick Multi-Care Center, a long-term care facility in North Baltimore. Aims is responsible for the center's compliance with state and federal regulations. His job also entails guaranteeing Keswick clinical departments will provide residents quality care. Aims has more than 30 years experience in health care management. Before coming to Baltimore four years ago, Aims lived in upstate New York and managed various health-service programs.

Patient First, an urgent care chain, opens a new center this morning on the campus of Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center -- its first facility on the grounds of a hospital and its first in Baltimore City. Bayview sought out Patient First, seeing it not as competition but as a mechanism to unclog its crowded emergency department. The Bayview opening heralds a new burst of growth for Patient First, which opened five urgent care centers in the Baltimore area a decade ago but had not built any since.

If you haven't visited Carroll Hospital Center recently, you might want to know that the emergency department has relocated toward the front of the hospital, saving you the drive around the parking lot. Three years ago the hospital underwent an $80 million renovation, during which the space formerly occupied by the emergency department was transformed into an award-winning outpatient center. The ED doubled in size, and added televisions to every room in the 30,000-square-foot space. A five-story tower was built with the latest medical technology and efficient layouts.

Emergency room use continues to accelerate in Maryland, and more than a third of the visits are for conditions that could be treated elsewhere, the Maryland Health Care Commission reported yesterday. The report, prepared at the request of legislative leaders, is an update of one the commission did - with similar findings - in 2002. Commission members expressed frustration with the persistence of the trends. "This thing has been around and getting worse for a very long time," said Constance Row, a commission member and former hospital administrator.

Basket co. luncheon aids breast cancer Dinah Seisman, independent branch adviser for Longaberger Basket Co., and other associates will sponsor a Breast Cancer Awareness Luncheon Hope Gathering from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at Trinity Lutheran Church, 1100 Philadelphia Road, Joppa. Tickets are $55 and include lunch and 2006 Horizon of Hope Basket, door prizes and silent auction. Proceeds will benefit the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation of Maryland. Information: 410-409-4117.