Worth The Wait
Worth The Wait
The Kaweah Delta Emergency Department will soon debut the brand new look
we have all been waiting for.
After years of planning, Kaweah Delta Medical Center will soon open its
doors to an expanded, state-of-the-art Emergency Department (ED) to enhance
the quality and efficiency of its emergency medicine services. The ED
is a crucial part of patient care, and every modification and thoughtful
decision was carefully designed to improve the patient experience by improving
workflows, enhancing efficiency, and reducing wait times for patients
and their loved ones during challenging times.
Kaweah Delta’s ED is one of the busiest in California, caring for
approximately 90,000 patients each year. The medical center’s ED
was originally designed to support the treatment of 72,000 patients a
year. But, as the only trauma center between Fresno and Bakersfield, and
one of only three emergency departments serving the nearly 500,000 living
in Tulare County, Kaweah Delta was seeing in excess of 250 patients a
day on a regular basis before the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the start of
the pandemic, that number has only slightly dropped to an average of 200
patients a day.
The solution to this growing problem is the renovation and expansion project
that will increase the number of patient beds and rooms, creating a greatly
improved patient experience by offering faster and more personalized service.
The state-of-the-art design and layout increases patient beds from 41
to 74 and more than doubles the size of the waiting area to provide 100+
patients and their families with a larger, more comfortable environment.
Currently, the ED waiting area can accommodate approximately 50-60 people,
socially distanced six feet apart.
In addition, more medical staff including providers and nurses will be
available to provide care in the newly expanded ED, helping the Medical
Center reduce wait times – an effort aided by Zone 6, our new patient
care area which allows our team to more quickly screen patients, determine
the level of their illness or injury, and provide them the precise level
of care they need. More space and more staff will improve operational
efficiency and have an immediate and positive impact on emergency care
in our community. A point echoed by JR Garcia, ED Tech Supervisor at Kaweah Delta.
“Adding 33 more beds is huge for us,” said JR. “Our community
is growing but the ED hasn’t. We needed to evolve to something bigger
to care for the increasing population. The changes we are making will
make things easier and more comfortable for our patients.”
Kaweah Delta is nearing the finish line for the ED expansion project with
construction scheduled to be completed in March 2021. Although construction
projects can be cumbersome in a busy hospital, change is necessary to
meet the emergency health needs of our growing community and become your
world-class healthcare choice, for life.