Methodist Boerne Offers Urgent Care Close to Home
health care, hospitals, methodist boerne,
The new Methodist Boerne Emergency Center is projected to treat as many as 16,000 patients during 2009. That’s proof that Boerne’s first 24-hour emergency facility, which opened its doors in March 2008, was sorely needed in the community.
“We started off busy, and we’ve maintained busy. For the size of Boerne and the region, that’s a healthy quantity of patients needing our services,” says Jim Willis, vice president of cardiac and adult emergency services for the Methodist Boerne Medical Center, affiliated with San Antonio-based Methodist Healthcare. The Boerne Medical Center comprises the free-standing Emergency Center and a 69,000-square-foot medical office building, which opened in April 2007. Tenants include physicians specializing in family practice and infectious disease, internal medicine, pediatrics and sports medicine, oncology and hematology, cardiology, and maxillofacial surgery. Other tenants include a comprehensive radiology practice and a home-health agency.
The $13.6 million Emergency Center features 15 private treatment rooms, including two for trauma or cardiac care and five for urgent care. Four fast-track rooms ensure that non-urgent patients are in and out quickly. Three nurses and at least one physician are always in the building. “Never will you walk in there and not find a board-certified emergency physician,” Willis says. And specialists are on call.
The Emergency Center provides on-site X-ray, CT scan, ultrasound, telemetry and laboratory services. A Picture Archiving Communications System allows digital storage of all images and electronic transmitting of those images to any other Methodist hospital should a patient need to be transferred or admitted.
While the nearest Methodist hospital in San Antonio is less than a 30-minute drive from Boerne, Willis says the time was right to offer emergent care closer to home for Kendall County residents. “That extra 24 miles can make a difference between living and dying,” he says, adding that the facility also draws patients from neighboring Bandera County.
A helipad is adjacent to the Emergency Center in case air-ambulance services are needed. Cardiac research shows that a heart-attack victim has a better chance of survival if the stricken artery is opened via cardiac catheterization within 90 minutes. With that in mind, Willis says Boerne heart attack patients are in a San Antonio cardiac-cath laboratory with the artery open in as little as 68 minutes. “That’s phenomenal and that saves lives,” he says.
The Methodist Boerne Medical Center is at 134 Menger Springs. “There was an investment in a very large footprint there, and we will grow as Boerne grows,” Willis says. “This is the start of something big, and we’ll continue adding services.”
Story by Sharon H. Fitzgerald
