From USA TODAY ( http://www.usatoday.com)
GERMANTOWN Md . This commuter suburb near Washington, D.C., boasts new homes, shopping centers, plenty of traffic — and a state-of the-art 21-room emergency department tucked into an office complex.
Unlike most emergency departments, however, there are no patients awaiting transfer upstairs to a medical ward, because there is no medical ward.
The nearest hospital is about 8 miles away.
“A lot of people were skeptical” about the idea at first, says Robert Jepson, associate vice president of Adventist HealthCare, which owns both the nearby hospital and the free-standing emergency center.
High-tech emergency departments such as this one — staffed with doctors and nurses but often miles from a hospital — are increasing rapidly nationwide. The centers offer convenience to patients and can ease overcrowding in nearby hospital ERs. Yet, they also have spurred questions about their limited services, their ability to decrease the overall burden for area hospitals and their impact on health care spending.
The number of such facilities owned by hospitals or entrepreneurial doctors grew 23% from 2005 to 2006, jumping from 146 to 179, according to an American Hospital Association survey. About a dozen more are opening or in the planning stages in states such as Florida, Minnesota and Texas.
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