Local hospital aims for 'sensible changes'. (An Advertising Supplement: Staffing & Employee Benefits).

Starting mid-April, Good Samaritan Hospital will once again be working to meet the changing needs of the thousands of commuters and residents in the downtown area. The hospital will start FastTrack, a prompt treatment service for patients with non-urgent medical needs.

The Fast-Track service will be offered seven days a week, between 11:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. Patients in the FastTrack unit with minor medical needs will be treated and released in about an hour.

"Good Samaritan Hospital has initiated the FastTrack program to minimize the extended wait times that have become epidemic in emergency rooms around the country," said Phyllis Ahern, R.N. and director of Good Samaritan's emergency services.

"With FastTrack we have created an alternative source of care for people whose work schedules often conflict with conventional appointment hours at doctors' offices. We are creating a program that fits the business professional's busy schedules and meets the needs of non-urgent care patients," Ahem said.

Joseph Bujak, M.D., a co-author of Leading Transformational Change: The Physician-Executive Partnership, said, "The fast track is a return to a focus on service and creates a solution that is relevant for people, so that very sick people don't delay care for the walking well."

When patients enter Good Samaritan's emergency room a triage nurse will assess each patient's condition and direct care dependent on their chief complaint as well as physician-directed established criteria. Patients will either be directed to FastTrack care or the central emergency room for more extensive medical attention.

The changes at the hospital make sense for another reason.

"People are used to getting what they want when they want it. And most successful organizations meet the needs of their customers," said Dr. Bujak, a frequent speaker at seminars for healthcare executives. "People seek convenience. It overrides most other considerations when they perceive there is not a lot of medical risk involved."

Along those lines, Good Samaritan is enhancing other convenient patient options through the Ambulatory Services Center, which is in the Medical Office Building located on the hospital's campus.

"People who walk into the center are pretty healthy. It's so much better for them than a hospital where you have some very sick patients," said Priya Jamidar, M.D., Medical Director, Gastroenterology at Good Samaritan Hospital as well as the Governor for the American College of Gastroenterology, Southern California. He uses the Center to detect and remove pre-cancerous polyps in the colon. Dr. Jamidar noted that Medicare recently approved screening for colon cancer for people 50 years old and older.

Most ambulatory centers are designed to enhance efficiency and effectiveness of care.

In the center, procedures often take much less time than they would in a hospital, said Dr. Jamidar. That's because people bypass traditional hospital admitting and transport procedures.

Currently, the Center has three operating rooms where physicians perform procedures such as podiatry surgeries and laparoscopies. And soon, physicians at the Center will use cryotherapy to treat prostate cancer. Cryotherapy is a procedure that involves the use of helium and argon gases to freeze and shrink tumors.

Ophthalmologist Dr. Harold Reaves uses the center for cataract surgery and laser procedures for glaucoma and diabetes. In addition, he treats abnormal growths on the cornea, known as pterygium. Pterygium is a leading cause of blindness in individuals who have lived near the Equator.

"Although there are many outpatient surgical centers in the city, the fact that this one is so closely aligned to one of the better hospitals in the city is the reason I continue to use it," Dr. Reaves said. "While working at other outpatient surgical centers, I have been in life-saving situations in one or two cases over the last twenty years. I found it is absolutely necessary to have a fully-equipped hospital nearby."

This article was provided by Good Samaritan Hospital. For more information, visit. www.goodsam.org.