EDITORIAL: New Urgent Care/Emergency Facility Will Improve Patient Care

By La Crosse Tribune, Wis.

Oct. 23–We’ve reported on projects that La Crosse’s two medical centers have initiated.

But we have not yet commented on Franciscan Skemp’s campaign to combine its urgent care and emergency departments.

Fundraising for the project is well under way, with Mayo contributing $5 million, and physicians, staff members and the Franciscan Skemp Auxiliary contributing $1 million.

The new combined facility will be located in space already designated for it in the north end of the Center for Advanced Medicine and Surgery, which opened in 2002.

What’s interesting about this proposal is that it combines two departments that consumers might regard as being similar — and it puts them in a centralized location that would be more convenient.

Urgent care, the walk-in clinic, is located on 10th Street, on the west side of the clinic building, while the emergency room is on the east side of the hospital, just across a driveway from the clinic building.

With the combined facility, there will be a central triage area, where nursing staff can determine the most appropriate care. And the new facility will be more efficient, and might result in patients getting treatment faster than they can at the two existing departments.

The new combined department has been planned since the Center for Advanced Medicine and Surgery opened, and the building was designed to be able to house the new facility.

A local capital campaign will raise the remaining $3 million. Construction is expected to start in November, with the project completed by the fall of 2008.

Here is how Franciscan Skemp Healthcare CEO and president Dr. Robert Nesse described the project: “We’re simply responding to demand. There is more demand for services, and it won’t slow with an aging population with chronic illness, and we’re trying to provide more efficient and more patient-centered care in these facilities.”

It is an exciting prospect for local consumers of medical care. .

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Copyright (c) 2007, La Crosse Tribune, Wis.

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