BREMERTON — Virginia Mason Franciscan Health has announced plans to open a hybrid emergency room and urgent care center on Kitsap Way in Bremerton. The physical care organization said the location would be the first of a site organization that plans to open around Puget Sound over the next 4 years.
The new Bremerton facility, which will open next to VMFH’s Kitsap Way Family Medicine Clinic, will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and will feature on-site lab apparatus and a radiology room with X-ray and CT scanners, the fitness formula said in an announcement. The total number of emergency room bays at the facility is still being evaluated, the president of St. Medical Center said. Michael, Chad Melton, in an interview with the Kitsap Sun.
VMFH paintings at the new location are underway and are expected to be completed in spring 2023.
The health care organization said the combination of services would take the guesswork out of patients who didn’t know where to go for care and help funnel non-emergency cases out of hospital emergency rooms.
Melton said patients wouldn’t notice the difference between the center’s urgent and emergency care services.
“Patients may not have to decide on emergency care or emergency facilities as they do today in the community,” he said. -certified emergency doctor, and at the end the bill will be adjusted depending on the point of care they receive.
The new facility comes from a partnership with Dallas-based Intuitive Health. VMFH said the Bremerton facility would be the first hybrid care of its kind in the state and that any of the teams would work to identify locations for other similar services in the area.
“Our state-of-the-art care style simplifies the patient experience : Patients no longer want to choose between the emergency branch and the local urgent care center,” Thom Herrmann, CEO of Intuitive Health, said in a statement. “Virginia Mason Franciscan Health’s The new combined emergency and emergency care services will expand the outpatient footprint of the healthcare formula throughout Puget Sound and, in the end, allow them to serve more patients, closer to home.
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Melton pointed to benefits such as 24/7 care and providing emergency medical service providers somewhere else in Kitsap to drop patients off so they can resume service and said having urgent and urgent care on site would help reduce health care costs.
Most of The St. Michael Medical Center’s operations moved from Bremerton to Silverdale in December 2020, the emergency room on the Cherry Avenue campus remained open. VMFH then closed the Bremerton emergency room a year ago, raising personnel considerations and claiming the move. it would be temporary, but that the site never reopened.
“People felt there was such a void when we moved to the St. John’s. Michael Medical Center,” said Melton. La people were very excited when I spoke to (Bremerton)’s City Council and others, to bring that point of care back to Bremerton. It adapts well to the network we serve. People were expecting emergency care, and I think we took a step forward. through the addition of the ED component, so they wouldn’t have to leave the network for that point. There will be labs, imaging, x-rays and CT scanners on site, so there’s no need to transfer them unless it’s to stay in the hospital. “
He added: “With the pandemic, it’s difficult to be able to staff any of the sites and duplicate those services, so we regrouped on a single campus. I think we’re in a much better position now and we know a lot more about COVID than before. “in the past, and I feel comfortable moving forward.
When asked about staffing at the new Kitsap Way facility, Melton said he sees the location as a “real addition” to the network and said VMFH officials are not aiming to cut elsewhere. He pointed to a nursing residency program designed to help meet the growing demand for staff and said that as nurses who have taken “travel” contracts begin to return to the network, progress has been made to upgrade “agency” staff with “basic” staff.
“I think we’re on track to staff this unit,” he said of the new facility.
Nathan Pilling is a journalist and covers the Bainbridge Island, North Kitsap and Washington State ferries for the Kitsap Sun. He can be reached at 360-792-5242, nathan. pilling@kitsapsun. com or on Twitter at @KSNatePilling.
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