May 11, 2015
NBC11 Bay Area TV news showed an investigative report revealing one building at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, a hospital, routinely calls 9-1-1 to get assistance to move patients from one building on the campus to the emergency room on the same campus.
The 9-1-1 call gets a fire truck and an ambulance dispatched to the campus to pick up the patient and transport to the ER. Each call ties these crews up for probably 30 minutes and makes them unavailable for other emergencies.
What’s remarkable is there is an underground passageway connecting the 2 buildings that are about the length of a football field apart. It takes longer to get the emergency medical system response activated than it would to wheel the patient to the ER in a wheelchair or on a gurney.
The head of medicine at Valley Medical Center said he was unaware of the practice and would look into it.
Executives can’t address issues they aren’t aware of. When something doesn’t make sense, the best practice is to raise the issue to a member of the leadership team, not simply shake your head in disbelief.
Photo Credit: Flickr, Christiaan Triebert
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