Community Corner

Ocean Medical Center's New ER Opens Thursday

Take a tour: Private rooms for all patients, brand new equipment and technology in $82 million new emergency department

The wait is over, in more ways than one, at the new emergency department at Ocean Medical Center.

Gone are the days of patients receiving care in hallways, cramped spaces and curtains separating one patient from another. Waiting rooms are a thing of the past as well – the new emergency department, which opens at 7:30 a.m. Thursday – doesn't even have one.

The $82 million emergency department, triple the size of the hospital's old department, is far different than the image that often comes to mind when one thinks of an "emergency room," said Dean Lin, the president of Ocean Medical Center.

Lin took Brick Patch on a tour of the new facility the day before it was set to open.

"There are a lot of details we created based on our experience," said Lin. "It's all about the touches that people may not expect in a typical emergency care experience."

Nobody wants to have to go to the hospital, but patients in the new emergency department, built where an old parking lot was located, will have a better experience than they likely ever had before. Patients who drive themselves to the department are no longer met by a line of people waiting to see a representative at a glass window – only to be handed forms. The triage desk is set up to immediately bring patients to a private room where they will be treated. Registration takes place at one's bedside once they are comfortable.

The new emergency department can accommodate up to 70,000 visits per year. Ocean Medical Center currently handles about 55,000 per year in its emergency department that was originally meant for 17,000 visits per year.

Art adorns the walls, natural light flows through the ceilings by way of skylights and, eventually, gardens will be constructed in courtyards and crevices outside where both staff and family members of patients can breathe in some fresh air.

But the department is much more than a new building. The emergency department's equipment is all new, from beds to heart monitors to bariatric devices. Patients in need of a CT scan or other medical imagery will no longer have to be transported to another floor – the hospital purchased brand new imaging equipment that will be reserved just for emergency patients.

"It will certainly benefit our inpatients as well," said Lin, since it will eliminate backlogs caused by all of the hospital's patients using the same imaging equipment.

The 49-bed emergency room is divided between express care rooms for those who suffer minor injuries – hospital staff likes to use the example of a mishap with a fishing hook to illustrate the types of cases typically handled there – to large rooms that will house critically ill patients, such as those suffering heart attacks.

There is also a dedicated, brightly-colored pediatric section of the emergency department that will serve children and their families who come for treatment.

Down the hall, the behavioral health portion of the emergency room – where patients with dimentia or mental health issues are treated – is secured and monitored. Previously, behavioral health patients mixed with others in the wider, unsecured emergency room setting.

The new department was financed through Meridian Health's larger capital plan for its network, as well as a $5 million gift from Edele Hovnanian in honor of her parents, Hirair and Anna Hovnanian, for whom the new department is named.

Since the initial gift, the hospital has raised $10 million in donations.

"Tremendous community support has helped create this incredible healing environment," said Lin.

Lin said the hospital will also be adding staff to build on the physical improvements the new department provides. In the case that the need for emergency services expands even further, the department has two additional floors that are still unoccupied, but already set up for potential expansion.

The building can structurally support an additional three floors that could be constructed at a later date if the need should ever present itself.


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