Somerville Hospital official: Ambulances coming back

Dr. Assaad Sayah under a poster honoring Somerville Hospital.

By Travis Andersen, Town Correspondent

The head of emergency medicine at Somerville Hospital says that patients are arriving via ambulance regularly, after a slight dip this summer, when the hospital stopped offering in-patient treatment for budgetary reasons.

Arrivals fell by 5 to 10 percent after the in-patient wing closed in July, according to Dr. Assaad Sayah, who blamed the lull on a "miscommunication" between the hospital and paramedic companies.

"They had questions about the [quality of] care," Sayah said. "But we've proven that the care is appropriate."

Cataldo Ambulance Service, Inc., the hospital's main provider, declined comment on Tuesday.

But Sayah said ambulances are running at full throttle, because under the new system, individuals requiring in-patient admittance are quickly transferred to Cambridge Hospital, which like Somerville belongs to the Cambridge Health Alliance. And, Sayah said, transfers jump to the front of the line for beds when they arrive.

"We did that because we wanted people to feel as comfortable [checking into Somerville] as in other places," he said.

Patients go to Whidden Hospital in Everett - another Alliance partner - if Cambridge is full, and the same transfer policy applies.

Assaad said 9 percent of Somerville's roughly 23,000 patients require admittance each year.

Somerville patients are transferred out of the Alliance network if they require neurological or pediatric intensive care, and in that case, they don't have priority on a bed.

But about 90 to 95 percent of in-patient cases remain in the network, according to Dr. Christopher Grieves, who works in the emergency department in Somerville. He said that while efficiency has improved under the new system, the criteria for in-patient admittance remains the same.

"It's more effective," said Grieves, noting that patients see doctors sooner under the new system, since they skip the triage step that use to stand between check-in and treatment. "One call does it all."

And does it faster than most emergency rooms, according to Sayah. He said the average patient spends just 88 minutes in the Somerville ER, far outpacing most facilities. But he insists that his staff pays careful attention to all patients.

"The worst thing to do is delay a patient's care," he said, adding that the quick turnaround explains why the Somerville ER often wins an independent firm's monthly patient satisfaction survey taken at every Alliance emergency room. A plaque hangs at the winning facility each month, and right now it's in Somerville.

Stacey Elliot, a nurse in the Somerville ER, added that while it can sometimes get "a little quieter" without the in-patient wing, "things are changing for the positive."