Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Does Summit County need a hospital?
Intermountain Health Care is proposing to build a hospital in Summit County near Quinn's Junction. Do you think the area can support a hospital? Would you go there for treatment or would you drive to one of the bigger facilities in Salt Lake City? How do you feel about IHC's involvement?What kinds of medical care would you like to see provided locally? Now's the time to speak up. Click on Comments below. You don't need to be a registered blogger and you dont need to release your name. Just click the anonymous option and let us know where you stand.
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12 comments:
How can a well-run hospital not be a positive for the community? Park City has to realize that it is an attractive area for a for-profit hospital to move into - a fast growing, relatively well-off community of people who are generally quite concerned with maintaining their health in top form. As such, PC should determine what stipulations it wants to put on such an institution to ensure that all of its citizens have the ability to benefit from the proximity of its services. For example, PC might stipulate that a certain percentage of those served by the hospital be non-insured clients. Finally, PC government should seek advice, either from other towns that brought in hospitals to their community, or health care consultants, so that they understand their options in negotiating with IHC (which will undoubtedly be more sophisticated than PC town government insuch matters).
There is no doubt that a hospital would be a positive thing for the community. My family and I would seek all but the most specialized treatment at such a facility. A full fledged trauma center would be the greatest asset of such a facility, since all major trauma must be driven or flown to SLC today, an unacceptable situation for such an active and somewhat high risk community. Hopefully the hospital at Quinn's will spur other development in the area and offset the madness at the Junction. While I don't want the poorly planned growth of Kimball's at PC's backdoor, I for one am intersted in major retail and residential growth in that area nontheless.
I recently took a friend to the hospital in Heber. I was quite pleasantly surprised at how fast it was to get there, about 20 minutes, and how quickly my friend was helped at the ER. She was taken right away and was given top quality service by a very friendly medical staff. The doctor and nurses were great. I also noticed that the hospital wasn't busy. I wondered if Park City really does need a hospital, when the Heber hospital is so close by.
Any one who dosn't think we need a Hospital has there head stuck in the sand. One area alone that beeing child births should cause some concern with half of them in the winter going over Parleys.
Not an IHC monopoly, please!
How about being a "satellite hospital" from the University of Utah (UU) where you could receive initial triage care in PC, then, if necessary, be referred/transferred to a state-of-the-art facility with the ability to provide care in all specialized areas of medicine? For example: A skiing accident victim is initially transported to PC hospital from the ski resort. Head trauma is diagnosed, communication of UU MD to UU MD of incoming patient who may need neurosurgery. It would be ideal to have a larger facility to fall under given the number of recreational accidents and trauma that occur in PC.
Also, UU trained staff could rotate up to the hospital. Who would you rather care for you,a community MD or trauma-certified MD affiliated with a University trauma center?
Can you tell that I received life-saving care at the UU?
Being in the medical community, I can tell you that a full fledged, full-service hospital cannot be supported by this community. A triage hospital with affiliation to either IHC or the U and some specialized services unique to the area is a much more viable option.
An orthopedic/sports medicine program, outpatient surgery, and an ER capable of triage and routine care should certainly be viable in this area. Personally, although the Heber hospital is relatively close, I would rather travel the extra 15 minutes to Salt Lake valley.
The current best treatment for an acute myocardial infarction is to go directly to a cardiac cath lab and have the artery opened with balloon angioplasty and place a stent. Time equates to death of heart muscle. Currently all Summit Count acute MI's have to go to SLC. With the population growth in Summit County, it is reasonable to expect that a cardiac cath lab will someday be built to treat such acute MI's. A cath lab in Park City could service all of Summit and Wasatch Counties. As a cardiologist at the U of U, I support a hospital in PC and would support the eventual construction of a cardiac cath lab
YES, YES, YES...we need a hospital in Park City!
What was it I just heard a jazz artist on the radio say; that new style idealists in music history have been so laid back that they fell out of their chairs? This sounds a bit like PC with this question about an ER hospital. Sitting about just talking when there are those with great initiative ready to jump a mile is not realistic. not everything in PC is made up of skiers and snowboarders with orthopedic problems, and those who visit or live in PC with a heart attack, homebirth, or an incidental car collision. PC is not a temporary ski and bar/expensive dining playground with shopping.
Thre recent "D" grade for Utah's emergency care system should have every resident in Summit County writing the City and County to support the hospital. Even if the proposed facility does not offer all forms of emergency care, it will provide additional access, an element where Utah scored very low.
I am not in the medical profession, but I do know that even a regional "satellite" triage hospital costs a great deal. Nonetheless, the year-round population of Park City deserves to have a place where the already discussed heart attacks, child births and other daily events of life can be treated competently. I would not want to have to drive over Parley's Summit in labor with a child and meet with the blinding snow and 1-1/2 hour delay that I experienced last December on my way to the airport!
The UU satellite hospital seems to make a great deal of sense. But does a teaching hospital have a higher rate of medical mistakes due to the reality of being treated by neophyte medical students? No hospital is 100% error free, certainly, but it sounds like a cause of concern. And what would be the policy for treating the medically uninsured who are also indigent? If the hospital must restrict how many non-paying patients it can treat to remain solvent, then who decides who receives the care. If the policy is to treat one and all regardless of income or insurance, will the community end up paying the tab? Will there be a hospital tax of some sort extracted from tourist dollars or sales tax perhaps? It's all very complicated but it seems worth it and very necessary.
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