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The Buffalo News
The new emergency department in Mercy Hospital provides spacious areas to make work more
efficient and pleasant for the staff and to improve the overall experience for patients and their
families.
Harry Scull Jr. /Buffalo News
Mercy Hospital moves into future
Prepares to open expanded facilities for emergency care
By Henry L. Davis
News Medical Reporter
Updated: April 28, 2010, 8:52 am /
Published: April 28, 2010, 7:11 am
To walk from Mercy Hospital's current emergency department to its new facility is to travel in
time from medicine's past to its future.
The old emergency room is so cramped that beds line the narrow corridors, and privacy comes
via flimsy curtains. If a doctor orders a CT scan, as is often the case today, patients must traipse
to another part of the hospital.
The new emergency room, which will open May 11, is more than four times larger, outfitted to
the hilt with high-tech tools and looks like an upscale hotel. Natural light and glass dominate an
array of private rooms, while earth tones and stone work define a cavernous reception area.
The change represents an ongoing trend in the hospital industry as facilities make over their
emergency rooms, once a neglected service in the back of buildings, into their new front doors.
This project follows similar emergency department expansions and upgrades completed or under
way in the Buffalo area in recent years at such hospitals as St. Joseph in Cheektowaga, Millard
Fillmore Suburban in Amherst, Erie County Medical Center and Buffalo General.
"The emergency room has become the gateway into the hospital," said C.J. Urlaub, president and
CEO of Mercy Hospital, part of the Catholic Health system. "But another important theme for us
is that we had to be more sensitive to patient satisfaction. Our current emergency service just
doesn't respect privacy and dignity."
The $31.5 million project is the largest ever undertaken by Catholic Health, which also operates
Sisters and St. Joseph hospitals, as well as Kenmore Mercy in the Town of Tonawanda. It will
increase the size of Mercy's emergency department, one of the busier facilities in the region, to
48,000 from 11,000 square feet.
The 13 patient bays and 15 hallway beds will be replaced by 32 private rooms, including spaces
devoted to victims of sexual assault and patients with behavioral problems or highly infectious
conditions.
Other features include three triage rooms, two resuscitation rooms for patients with stroke or
other critical issues, a decontamination area, family consultation rooms and a nondenominational
mediation room.
An integrated wireless telephone system will replace the overhead paging system that typically
fills emergency rooms with noise. Pneumatic tubes can carry blood and urine samples to and
from the laboratory in seconds. The system also can deliver medications from the pharmacy.
The project includes an air ambulance helipad, reflecting the gradual transformation of Mercy
from a hospital serving South Buffalo to a facility with a fuller complement of specialty services
that is trying to pull patients from a wider area.
"We're not competing with ECMC for trauma cases. That's what they do," Urlaub said. "But we
do see ourselves trying to serve the southern Western New York market, and the helipad will
make it easier to bring referrals here for tertiary care."
The new designs reflect the increasing use of emergency departments for non-urgent health
issues and by more patients with chronic conditions and individuals without health insurance —
all contributing to longer wait times.
In the Buffalo Niagara region, ECMC remains the busiest emergency department, with more
than 58,000 patient visits last year, according to a medical center official. ECMC also is the
regional adult trauma center, which handles the most complex injuries.
The emergency department at Women & Children's Hospital, which is the regional trauma center
for children, handled about 48,000 cases in 2009.
Mercy, Buffalo General and Millard Fillmore Suburban each cared for about 40,000 emergency
patients last year.
Hospitals are paying more attention to the efficient movement through facilities and the
construction of flexible spaces that can accommodate unexpected influxes of patients.
Mercy's new design is expected to reduce bottlenecks and wait times, improving the experience
of workers, patients and families.
"We've worked hard in the design to decrease nonproductive wait times, to always move people
forward in the treatment process and to keep patients informed about what to expect so that they
are more realistic," said Maureen Liebler, director of emergency and critical care services.
The overall look of the new building, which abuts the front of the hospital, takes its cues from a
nearby landmark.
"Cazenovia Park was a major force in the design — the natural light, the use of materials like
stone," said Ike Lowry, the project designer for Cannon Design of Grand Island.
Those interested in getting a peek at the facility before it opens can attend an open house from 1
to 4 p.m. May 8.
Similar tours will be offered from 10 a.m. to noon the same day for emergency first-responders.