By ABC-7 Reporter Daniel Marin
EL PASO -- There's more than new buildings going up at University Medical Center, El Paso's county hospital. The results are in from a 'community image' survey.
UMC commissioned the survey back in May, calling 400 homes in El Paso. The questions were given in both English and Spanish. Hospital President and CEO Jim Valenti put together similar surveys in 2005 and 2007. But this year's numbers are a bit of an early Christmas present for the hospital.
"Every year we've repeated it, our numbers have gone up and up and up," said Public Affairs Director Margaret Althoff-Olivas.
UMC scored a 3.9 out of 5 when it came to patient satisfaction. The hospital also tied for first place with Providence, a private hospital, when it came to preference in El Paso.
Althoff-Olivas says despite $300 million in new construction for a new children's hospital and an expanded ER, it's not necessarily that the hospital is getting better, they say they're just doing a better job of promoting themselves.
"We've always had great doctors," Althoff-Olivas told ABC-7. "We've always had fantastic nurses. We've always had great capability."
And it doesn't hurt to have an affiliation with El Paso's only four-year medical school; something UMC made sure to mention in this year's survey.
"That was a no-brainer to include Texas Tech," Althoff-Olivas said. "We feel we're on the right track. Is there more for us to do? Sure, there's always more."
On that 'to do' list - cutting the ER wait times, which are a whole lot longer than the national average. Those surveyed said it was UMC's biggest problem.
The ABC-7 I-Team found the average wait time just to see a doctor sits at about 3 hours. The national average: 60 minutes according to the government accountability office.
So what gives?
Emergency Department Director Blas Mesa says there are several factors which include an ER that, at the moment, is just too small, a border community that doesn't utilize primary medical care, a lack of primary physicians city-wide, an influx of H1N1 patients, more cars and more wrecks in a growing El Paso and, of course, the bloodshed in Mexico.
Anytime the hospital treats a level one trauma patient - "as bad as it gets," according to Althoff-Olivas - the ER is flooded with at least 17 staff members per patient. When strained with multiple level one patients, resources are then pulled from the rest of the ER and sometimes the rest of the hospital.
The result? Longer wait times for other patients.
While UMC can't stop the bullets in Juarez or stop cars from hitting one another, there is one thing the hospital can and is doing: That new, expanded ER.
When complete next year, the ER will span 38,000 square feet, have 57 treatment spaces instead of 38 and 6 trauma rooms versus three.
...Some extra help for those who help others.
"(Treating level one patients) is better than anything on television," said Althoff-Olivas. "I looks like something you'd see in a movie. It's unbelievable."
