Officials from the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals and the CEOs of the four area hospitals that have emergency rooms met this morning and began mapping their strategy to deal with the pending closure of the Baton Rouge General Medical Center’s Mid City emergency room, which could come as soon as mid-March.
For now, executives of the four hospitals—Baton Rouge General, Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, Lane Regional Medical Center and Ochsner Medical Center Baton Rouge—are declining to discuss specifics, referring all comments on their plans to DHH.
In a prepared statement on the outcome of the meeting, DHH Secretary Kathy Kliebert says: “This morning, I met with Baton Rouge-area hospital executives to discuss access to care in our community. I was pleased to learn that area hospitals are already devising strategies to better service the community as Baton Rouge General prepares to close its Mid City ER. We know that so much of the volume at our local emergency rooms can be better treated in other settings, and that is why we are focused on expanding clinic access at existing and new locations as well as educating the community on where those resources exist and how and when to utilize the ER. The department agreed to coordinate the coalition, and we’ll share information with the public as we finalize these action items.”
Specifically, hospital executives, state officials and representatives from the Baton Rouge Area Foundation—which has assumed a prominent role in helping to manage the situation— are looking at data related to emergency room capacity and utilization to best determine how to fill the hole that will be created when the Mid City ER closes, according to a DHH spokeswoman.
Officials at Baton Rouge General announced earlier this month they would shut down the ER within 60 days because of mounting financial losses of some $2 million per month.
—Stephanie Riegel
