I just read about free standing emergency rooms in Bowie MD and in Virginia. Now I find we have one in my own backyard so to speak - Bolingbrook IL.
How does that work? They just stabalize them and ship them to another hospital? The websites seem to indicate they can handle ANY emergency and are level two trauma centers.
Is it called an “emergency room”? Do ambulances arrive with sirens and flashing lights?
If not, it’s likely an “immediate care” or “urgent care” facility, meant for ambulatory cases, people in enough distress that they can’t wait for an appointment with their primary physician. They are meant for diagnosis, referral to specialists, and minor trauma treatment. They wouldn’t take in, say, car wreck injuries. Those would go to a true emergency room/trauma center.
Jeez, sorry, gotta read more before I post.
Post link to their sites?
These are found all over the country. There’s one in the Charleston, SC area, and there is a highway sign alerting drivers to the facility. Real hospitals with real er’s have complained that the sign is misleading.
Here are some sites.
BOLINGBROOK ILLINOIS
FAQ ABOUT BOLINGBROOK IL CENTER
BOWIE MARYLAND LEVEL II?
TRINITY MOLINE ILLINOIS
INOVA VIRGINIA
Facilities like this are not horribly uncommon in some rural areas too. Example the parlier clinic in parlier, ca. Maybe 2,500 square feet of building that sees some of the most hellacious trauma. Ambulances often drop in because even as small as they are they have 10 times the facilities and training of paramedics. Parlier can stabilize a patient that is beyond ambulance abilities then transfer to a regular hospital by ground ambulance or helicopter. Its not any kind of glory job but it provides a pivotal life saving link to many when you are 20-30 miles from a major hospital.
Don’t forget that damn near any serious ER MD can make a HUGE difference with only a handful of tools because of the scope of thier practice. Medicines magic is mainly creating the conditions where healing can take place, most of those conditions do exist in an urgent care facility like the OP metions. Like many other things in life, don’t confuse the size of the structure with the skills that drive it.
Examples of things a “urgent care” center can do that ambulances cannot:
Blood transfusions
Reinflate collapsed lungs
set and cast broken bones
cutdown IV insertions
repair/suture arterial bleeding
xrays/ultrasound to locate internal injuries
if need be many emergency surgical procedures can be done there.
From my EMT experience most ER docs are a realistic bunch. If its lose a patient or quick and dirty surgery on a gurney in a trauma room, out come the tools.
If someone shot me 20 miles from nowhere and I had the option of a “mini-mart” version of a hospital to stabilize me or another 40 minutes of ground transport, take me to the little trauma center.
In a major city, ambulances would not be going someplace like this except in mass casualtiy situations, since even private hospitals (kaiser permanente for example) are usually part of county disaster plans.
Upon reading through the sites it looks more like a heavy duty version of a walk in clinic but 95% of all ER patients walk in anyway. IMHO I would think the full service hospitals would be thankful.