Baptist, Emerus to Open 4 Emergency Hospitals in TX

Baptist Health System and Emerus announced Monday that they will partner to open four emergency hospitals in the San Antonio area.

"This gives us the opportunity to provide a broader range of services, and when we partner with a group like Baptist who has a lot of infrastructure in place we aren't starting from ground zero," Toby Hamilton, MD, CEO of privately held Emerus told HealthLeaders Media. "There is certainly a prestige with the Baptist brand, and we view this as an opportunity to get into that market, and the timing is just right."

The project calls for the construction of three new buildings, and a retrofitting of an existing building to house the emergency hospitals, at a cost of about $10 million for each hospital. Each will have about 10 inpatient beds, and will be open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and staffed with board-certified emergency medicine physicians, registered nurses, radiation technologists, and other clinical specialists. The emergency rooms will be equipped like conventional, large hospital-based emergency departments, with on-site imaging services including X-ray, CT scan, and ultrasound, and in-house labs.

Emerus was started six years ago by six emergency physicians. It operates two emergency hospitals and three 24-hour emergency rooms in Texas. Hamilton says The Woodlands, TX-based company is now negotiating with other healthcare organizations to open additional emergency hospitals.

"Knowledge of the ER and its functionality is really hands-on," Hamilton says. "People can say they understand it but until you've lived in it for five or 10 years you don't understand how ERs work."

Hamilton says that once patients are triaged and registered at the Baptist emergency hospitals they will be seen by a physician within 15 minutes, and most patients will spend less than one hour in the facility. "The physicians and the staff are coordinated in a completely different level where we are cross training people and jobs aren't isolated in buckets," he says. "It's a SWAT team approach."

Baptist will own the hospitals and provide the staff. Emerus will manage the hospitals. The project will create approximately 160 new jobs in the San Antonio area. Baptist expects to open its first hospital this fall, with the remaining three hospitals to open over the next year, the hospital system said.

 "Our mission at Baptist Health System is to be an innovative leader in providing quality and accessible health care to the people of San Antonio in a way that best meets our patients' needs," Graham Reeve, president/CEO of Baptist Health System, said in a joint media release. "Minutes matter in an emergency situation and improving access to emergency medical care is crucial to the health and wellbeing of our growing communities. We believe that these free-standing emergency facilities will make a difference in people's lives."

For-profit Baptist Health System is owned by Vanguard Health System.

Hamilton says health systems are coming to recognize the flexibility and economy that smaller emergency hospitals provide.

"In my opinion, the days of building that $300 million, 50-story hospital are over," he says. "Most hospitals are starting to look at community hospitals more as fire stations. For example, in our buildings they will be co-equipped with primary care physicians, rotating specialists etc., and the community comes to view that facility as its way station before it goes over to the big hospitals. It's the nimble, quicker version where that community doesn't have to drive nearly as far, but has access to those same resources."