At Highlands-Cashiers Hospital (HCH), outstanding care in an emergency department is about combining compassion and efficiency.
With this in mind, hospital staff identified an opportunity to provide the hospital’s doctors with more timely results of lab tests through a recently installed pneumatic (air pressure) tube system.
Prior to installation of the tube system, nurses in the hospital’s ER would routinely leave the ER to walk a lab specimen to the lab and return. With the newly installed tube system, team members and patients are now benefiting from the elimination of this step in the patient care process.
HCA Healthcare’s CEO, Sam Hazen visited HCH last December. During his visit, he was intent on meeting all the team members and looking for ways to help. The HCH Emergency Room is consistently ranked in the top of emergency departments across HCA Healthcare.
During his tour, Hazen spent a good bit of time there engaging with the ER nurses and doctors.
Hazen asked staff, “What is one thing I can do to help you take better care of our patients?”
The response from staff was a unanimous, “We need a tube station.”
Hazen took care of funding the tube station the very next business day.
Article and photo courtesy of Highlands-Cashiers Hospital