Should EMS patients be transported to nearest receiving hospital or be transported to the local hospital of their choice?
According to Chief John Wayne of the Lehigh Acres Fire District, “Approximately 45-50% of our patients request to be transported to “Ft. Myers” receiving facilities.”
Question should by why 45-50% of the LAFD patients request to be transported to “Ft. Myers” receiving facilities? Is this a perception issue for Lehigh Regional or Lehigh Acres Fire Department?
The Common Treatment Guideline of Lee County EMS is also followed by Lehigh Acres Fire Rescue and states: “Patients shall be transported to the local hospital of their choice. When their condition creates conflict with that choice, every effort should be made to convince/educate the patient/family of the need to transport to the most appropriate facility for treatment of their illness and or injury. If the patient is fully competent and refuses that direction, transport to the facility of their choice.”
“Patients shall be transported to the local hospital of their choice” is not based on any federal, state or local law; it is based on a protocol that the Lee County EMS Medical Director has signed off on.
Should the Common Treatment Guideline be changed to keep the majority of the EMS calls going to Lehigh Regional?
But according to one Lehigh Fire Commissioner Jackie Danis, “We only send bumps and bruises to Lehigh Regional.”
“Lehigh Regional Medical Center is a community hospital capable of handling most of our transport needs. There are specialty cases that are best served at specialty hospitals, such as those involving critical children, trauma or specific heart and stroke patients”, said Rob Farmer, Lee County Public Safety Director.
Maybe Lee County EMS has the answer — if Lehigh Regional Medical Center is capable of handling most of our transport needs, just maybe it’s a training opportunity for Lehigh Fire to support the local community and its community hospital.
From Joanie Jeannette the CEO Lehigh Regional Medical Center, “Lehigh Regional Medical Center serves the emergent needs of Lehigh Acres and surrounding communities through our full-service 24/7 emergency department. We are staffed by board certified physicians and registered nurses who are well trained to examine and treat patients in a timely manner. Patients are seen by a healthcare professional more quickly at Lehigh Regional than the state or national average.”
Lehigh Regional Medical Center emergency department is prepared to respond to a variety of medical emergencies. Approximately 38,000 patients seek care through our emergency department each year, making it one of the busiest in southwest Florida. For patients that require a higher level of care, once they are stabilized, they can be transported quickly via ambulance or helicopter to another provider.
According to Jeannette, there are several factors considered when a patient is transported to an emergency department, including proximity, condition and patient choice. We regularly work to notify local EMS as we advance our capabilities.
Since the Lehigh Fire department spends more money and time out outside their district should they charge an out of district user fee and / or a non-resident user fee to offset the price paid by its residents?
A Florida appellate court has already uphold ambulance billing fees for non-residents (click here) and the fire department can charge user fees under Florida statue 191.009(3)(a) “The board may provide a reasonable schedule of charges for special emergency services, including firefighting occurring in or to structures outside the district, motor vehicles, marine vessels, aircraft, or rail cars, or as a result of the operation of such motor vehicles or marine vessels, to which the district is called to render such emergency service, and may charge a fee for the services rendered in accordance with the schedule.”
These suggestions of new user fees have never been talked about at a public fire board meeting but could be user to help save the department keep jobs.
I live less than a mile from Lehigh Regional and I wouldn’t even go there if it was free.
I have used and will continue to use Lehigh Regional Medical Ctr. It services had always been convenient and professional.
Hopefully, everyone can utilize the services provided at Lehigh Regional Medical Ctr. It is now affiliated with one of the largest healthcare system in the US. After all, the folks who take care of us at the Medical Ctr. are certified professionals…they had to be trained .
To those who wishes to use other facilities “just because”, shame on you….it is like being.
an “ingrate” to your parents and those who care/provide food to keep you alive.
We must remind ourselves that we all have preferences.
Again, Lehigh Regional Medical Ctr. provides great care and we need to support same.
I agree with Jason Navarro, I don’t live much farther away and I too would not use them either!!!!!
Then if you died due to the fact that you chose a hospital further away, then I should bring the most beautiful flowers to yours and Mr. Navarro’s funeral and the entire Community shall remember you both by the bad choices you both made.
All these choices are personnal ones of course, but Lehigh Regional Medical Center has qualified personnel to handle most emergencies. It might be a medical mistake and perhaps a deadly one if one chose to delay stabilizing treatment at Lehigh Regional Med Ctr and instead chose a hospital 20 minutes further away on the rediculous assumption that there not a qualified medical facility. Its never wise to make a decision based on propaganda from a group that has an agenda.
LRMC has a perfectly fine EMERGENCY SERVICES DEPARTMENT. They offer 24-hour emergency room services led by trained emergency medicine physicians who are supported by compassionate medical and professional staff. Their emergency room is easy to access and features comfortable surroundings. They are backed by the full resources of an integrated health system offering the latest medical technology and diagnostic capabilities for adults and children.
Before you judge something….do your homework first. LRMC has invested $6 million dollars in upgrades and for further information go to this link. http://www.lehighregional.com/sites/default/files/domain-138/lehigh-cbr-092012.pdf
As it states in the article I would only go there for minor issues. I took my son there when I first moved here. I called his doctor and with the symptoms I gave they told me to take him to the ER. Because his symptoms were of appendicitis. We stayed in the waiting room for over an hour. My son was in extreme pain, vomiting. When I was getting ready to leave and take him to Ft Myers they took him in. Come to find out he had pancreatitis which was unusual for a child of 12 years old. They told me it could have caused by the mumps. So I let it go. Later about 6-7 years, He ended having to have his gall bladder removed because of gall stones. Gall stones sometimes causes pancreatitis. If they had done more test that may have been prevented, him having to have his gall bladder removed.
It is sad to that some of us are living in the “past”. We should consider supporting our Medical facilities. Today we have a variety of Medical Offices in Lehigh …I am sure we have can choose to go to one of their offices and better yet to the emergency room at LRMC.
Yes, it would appear as though the folks who are talking about ambulance services have an agenda. Is it possible that that the Fire Department is trying to convince Lehigh Residents that we must have “Special Assessment Fees” so that it can provide ambulance services? We now need to move forward and make educated choices ….It would be wise to check your pockets to see if you can afford to have enough money to pay your tax bill if the proposed “special assessment fee” (on the ballot for November) passes.
What some of you all don’t realize is that Lehigh Regional doesn’t really have any definitive care. They don’t have a Cardiac center or a Neurologic center or even they don’t handle broken bones. So if the Ambulance brings someone in having that requires one of them, the hospital will turn around and call the ambulance back to transport the person to one of the other hospitals. And of course Lehigh Regional will bill you for that.
They can and do handle cardiac patients, they can and do handle broken bones ……
“Lehigh Regional Medical Center is a community hospital capable of handling most of our transport needs. There are specialty cases that are best served at specialty hospitals, such as those involving critical children, trauma or specific heart and stroke patients”, said Rob Farmer, Lee County Public Safety Director.
From Joanie Jeannette the CEO Lehigh Regional Medical Center, “Lehigh Regional Medical Center serves the emergent needs of Lehigh Acres and surrounding communities through our full-service 24/7 emergency department. We are staffed by board certified physicians and registered nurses who are well trained to examine and treat patients in a timely manner. Patients are seen by a healthcare professional more quickly at Lehigh Regional than the state or national average.”
They can’t do heart bypasses, caths, any kind of open heart surgery. About the only heart related problem they can handle is angina. They can’t treat stroke patients definitively either.
LRMC has cardiac doctors on staff, also last week when we did the interview, we asked about stroke patients and they had three stroke patients in house.
Yes LRMC does not heart bypasses, caths, any kind of open heart surgery but not all cardiac patients need these services.
Lehigh Acres Gazette Web Team