Emergency room visits are at an all-time high at Whidbey General Hospital, and officials are beginning to talk about how to handle that growth in the future.
During the past four years, visits to the emergency department rose by almost 20 percent, from just under 18,000 in 2011 to more than 21,000 in 2014. If this year’s pace continues, around 23,000 patients will have visited the emergency room by the end of the year.
Chief Nursing Officer Linda Gipson told the hospital board in July that the emergency room saw the most visitors ever on a single May day, a total of 94 people.
“We may need to come at this with creative solutions,” said hospital Chief Executive Officer Geri Forbes.
Forbes declined to say what those solutions are yet. In other parts of the country, rural hospitals have expanded clinic hours or stayed open on weekends.
Whidbey General is the only emergency room on the island. Opening an urgent care clinic is expensive, especially for a rural hospital.
Large hospitals with urgent care clinics often lose money but make it up elsewhere with profits from other departments.
The hospital owns and operates clinics on North and South Whidbey that serve low- to moderate-income families as well as clinics that provide primary care, obstetrics and gynocology, orthopedic and surgery services. These clinics don’t take walk-ins, and don’t maintain extended hours.
A number of factors are causing the growth, Forbes said.
The Affordable Care Act increased access to health care to people who couldn’t afford it or couldn’t get it because a pre-existing condition, she said. More of these patients are showing up at the emergency room.
Baby Boomers are growing older and there’s been an overall increase in chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.
Some of the uptick also can be attributed to patients with mental health issues who have no other place to go.
Officials won’t begin to have more serious discussions on this topic until at the earliest next year. The focus right now is on a voter-approved $50 dollar expansion project.
