A proposal for a brand new, 12,000-square-foot stand-alone emergency department in Ivy City is moving forward, and is raising health and economic issues for a leading D.C. Council member.
District Hospital Partners LP, a joint venture of George Washington University Hospital and its owner, Universal Health Services Inc., unveiled plans for the $29.3 million facility to be built on Bladensburg Road, south of New York Avenue in Northeast.
But At-Large Council Member Christina Henderson said the city doesn’t need more emergency rooms, it needs a focus on health literacy so people will understand their own health situations and perform routine health maintenance.
“There will be some people who would say, ‘Oh, this is going to be great in terms of more access, in terms of more individuals for healthcare,'” Henderson told WTOP, adding that some may think adding a new emergency department will alleviate the waiting room issues at other emergency rooms across the city. “But the thing about a free-standing ED is that it has enough services in order to stabilize someone, and then you still have to be transferred to a full-service hospital.”
Henderson also chairs the council’s Committee on Health and has long advocated for more urgent care facilities in the city.
“Emergency room care is more expensive, especially for patients who don’t need that acute level of care,” Henderson said.
What District residents need, she added, is better access to preventive care and routine health monitoring, which can lead to better outcomes while reducing costs for the community.
The new hospital would be built on property purchased by Universal Health Services, and would include 14 emergency treatment rooms, diagnostic imaging services and a full clinical lab.
“My question was around whether or not a free-standing ED was needed versus access to urgent care,” Henderson said. “We don’t have a lot of pediatric urgent care opportunities in the District, and I’m always going to push for folks to go to a more preventive care route as opposed to an emergency room.”
“I am sort of questioning it from both sides from the economic perspective. What does this look like when it comes to our Medicaid dollars? But then, overall, what does this look like in terms of our larger quest for residents to have better health literacy in terms of when to use what provider, when?” Henderson said.
She added that GW has not asked for public funding for the facility. A certificate of need application will have to be filed for the D.C. Department of Health to conduct analysis of whether the facility is actually needed.
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