A close call

U.S. emergency rooms receive more than 118 million visits each year. And on the way, the same thought is racing through the minds of every ambulance driver. Every mother of a feverish toddler. Every businessman experiencing chest pains. Please hurry. Seconds count.

That urgency inspired St. Mary's Hospital to create a new kind of facility for residents in a rural suburb of Madison. The freestanding, 10-bed satellite emergency center will bring much-needed diagnostic and clinical expertise to patients in outlying areas, resulting in dramatically faster access to care. Staffed by board-certified emergency physicians and equipped with a laboratory, medical imaging capabilities, helicopter transport, and computerized registration and tracking systems, the center will be open 24-hours a day, 365-days per year, for large and small medical emergencies.

The new, 13,900-square-foot emergency center is the first phase of St. Mary's newly developed master plan, since it was the most critical need for the community. A small hospital and a medical office building will complete the 17-acre healthcare campus. Just in time for thousands of residents in southern Wisconsin.