IS HELP ON THE WAY? RETHINKING MEDICAL, EMERGENCY SERVICES.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Medical and fire officials are seeking solutions to overcrowded emergency rooms caused in part caused by ambulances taking people to hospitals for nonemergencies.

Los Angeles County Fire Department officials are forming a committee that will involve officials from Antelope Valley hospitals, ambulance companies and other health care organizations.

``We need to look at different alternatives in transporting patients,'' said Mike Metro, chief of paramedic services for the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

One option, outgoing Antelope Valley Hospital board chairman Gary Hill said, is to give paramedics the option of sending patients with non- life-threatening ailments to a facility such as Antelope Valley Hospital's clinic in Palmdale or other urgent-care centers with upgraded facilities and extended hours of operation.

``Paramedics when on the scene do a diagnosis. If a person needs additional medical care and does not need an emergency room, they can be transported to an urgent-care facility,'' Hill said.

The Antelope Valley Hospital board at its Nov. 20 meeting authorized CEO Mathew Abraham to be the hospital's representative on the committee.

``The committee will be looking at how we can change the current 911 model,'' Hill said.

Metro said two of the county's busiest paramedic squads are in Lancaster and Palmdale, each responding to about 7,000 911 calls a year. ``The highest run load is during the day up until 10 or 11 at night,'' Metro said.

``Out of the patients that we transport in the Antelope Valley, roughly 34 percent require paramedic intervention; the remaining patients do not,'' Metro said.

But people not requiring ``paramedic intervention'' does not mean they don't have to go the emergency room, Metro said. A case in point would be someone with a broken arm, who may not require paramedic treatment but would still go to the emergency room to have his arm set, Metro said.

A ``significant'' number, however, do not require trips to the emergency room and should go to a private physician or an urgent-care clinic, Metro said.

Examples of 911 calls that are nonemergencies include people who complain of sore throats, colds and the flu, Metro said.

``There are a lot of ER calls that are not true. We had one person who used 911 from Lake Los Angeles to the hospital as a taxi service,'' Hill said.

Hill and Metro said a law requires that people who call 911 and demand to go to the hospital must be taken there.

Fire department officials want to seek innovative solutions to what Metro called Antelope Valley's ``health care crisis,'' which he said is illustrated by sometimes hours-long waits in emergency rooms.

Paramedic squads and ambulances sometimes must wait 30 minutes to two hours to turn over patients to a hospital because of the lack of beds, Metro said.

``The root problems lie deeper in the health care system. Does Antelope Valley Hospital have enough beds to serve their community? Do people go to the emergency room that shouldn't? Those types of things. It's much deeper and broader issues,'' Metro said.

Waits at Antelope Valley Hospital's emergency room in Lancaster can be as long as five to six hours, although hospital officials hope the hospital's Palmdale clinic will help shorten those times.

County officials said that in 2001, the emergency rooms at Antelope Valley Hospital and Lancaster Community Hospital had to divert patients elsewhere 40 percent of the time because of rising numbers of patients and long waits.

Emergency room patients often have minor ailments that can be treated at urgent-care centers or walk-in clinics, hospital officials say.