Growing Patient Volumes

In 2008, St. Joseph's Hospital served approximately 22,000 inpatient and 500,000 outpatient visitors. These numbers are a reflection of rapidly growing needs - and they're expected to continue to grow well into the future.

Emergency Department

The Emergency Department (ED) at St. Joseph's Hospital is hit hardest by the increase in patient volume. Designed to serve about 38,000 patient visits per year, the ED currently sees about 50,000 - and that number is expected to grow to 70,000 by 2015.

In a department where quick treatment is critical, patients are routinely exposed to longer than average wait times. Local EMS personnel have noted their concerns over increased wait times when delivering patients to the ED at St. Joseph's. Many patients simply can't afford to wait, nor can the community afford to have emergency personnel unavailable due to long wait times.

In terms of total efficiency and patient throughput, patients at St. Joseph's experience an average time of five hours and 32 minutes from arrival to bed to disposition. The gold standard for throughput is 59 minutes. This demonstrates a clear need for the ED to be enlarged and reorganized.