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Emergency Services
Your Gift Will:
- Provide for meeting the community's future needs for emergency care with equipment and provisions to serve every conceivable need, including trauma and burn care
- Help reduce the long waits experienced by patients and their families
Background
By its very name, Emergency Services denotes crisis; and in a medical crisis - immediacy, efficiency, and appropriateness of care means the difference between life and death.
The City of Berkeley has one hospital, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, with one emergency room. Oakland, Richmond, Emeryville, Albany, El Cerrito, Lafayette, Orinda, and Moraga residents, with a combined population of 1.4 million people, also frequent the Alta Bates Emergency Department. Originally built to serve up to 12,000 patients a year, the existing Emergency Department has been treating 36,000 patients per year.
Despite long delays in crowded waiting rooms, which are often experienced in this high-volume facility, no one is ever turned away.
A Master Plan is being developed to address the needs of the community and will provide the blueprint for future emergency care. One thing is clear: patients' needs must be met quickly, efficiently and with the high level of care and compassion that has become Alta Bates Summit's hallmark. Incorporated into the equation will be use of new technologies and equipment, better flow patterns for patient treatment, and ways to reduce the long delays experienced by patients and their families.
The Challenge:
It will be necessary to renovate the Emergency Department so that it complies with revised environmental and earthquake codes. Plans include incorporating a Chest Pain Clinic with first response cardiac defibrillators, and a decontamination unit for hazardous accidents or spills. Examination rooms will have ceiling-mounted mobile X-rays, and will have its own laboratory for quick response of test results. In addition, an Ear, Nose, and Throat Treatment Unit is planned.
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