Press Release

08/21/2008
For Immediate Release

SJRMC Offers Area’s First Freestanding Emergency Room

While Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center in Mishawaka transferred its inpatient services to SJRMC’s South Bend Campus back in June, patients in and around the Princess City are still encouraged to visit the Mishawaka hospital should an emergency arise.  In fact, SJRMC now offers the area’s first freestanding Emergency Room at its Mishawaka facility, located at 215 West Fourth Street.

The freestanding ER in Mishawaka provides all the traditional services of an ER, including:

• 24/7 emergency care
• Board Certified ER Physicians
• 9 Private Procedure Rooms
• Specialty trained ER Nurses
• Fully staffed Radiology, including X-Ray, CT Scan & Ultrasound
• Laboratory services provided onsite by the South Bend Medical Foundation

“We can do everything an ER does,” said SJRMC’s Dr. Mark Kricheff.  “We have the same doctors here, the same nursing staff, CT scan, lab.  Services in the ER here did not change, only the designation.”

SJRMC’s Mishawaka ER is now referred to as a freestanding ER, meaning it can treat almost any kind of patient and prescribe medications, but cannot admit anyone or accept ambulance patients.

“Time-sensitive conditions, such as heart attack patients or mothers in labor, should go to our South Bend ER,” said Kricheff.

Those patients with severe conditions, as well as those who need to be admitted to the hospital, will be securely transferred via ambulance to SJRMC/South Bend from the freestanding ER in Mishawaka.

Freestanding ER’s have existed in the United States for over 40 years without much fanfare.  More recently, freestanding ER’s have been launched with several goals in mind, including meeting the needs of drastically rising ER visits, which increased to 115 million nationally in 2005 according to National Center for Healthcare Statistics.

“This underscores what we already knew, that there was a need,” said Nancy R. Hellyer, SJRMC’s President and CEO.  “While transferring our impatient services to South Bend in June was essential to our move to our new hospital in Mishawaka next year, the freestanding ER reflects our commitment to meeting the needs of those we serve in downtown Mishawaka, as well as all of the communities we serve.”

SJRMC’s new hospital in Edison Lakes, Mishawaka, will open in 2009.  But the freestanding ER at SJRMC’s current Mishawaka facility may remain after the move, as hospital officials want to review how the community is using it.