Safe Harbor: The San Pedro Emergency Department Campaign

When Providence Little Company of Mary San Pedro Medical Center launched its $4 million Emergency Department Campaign in 2015, the need could not have been more pressing.

The emergency department (ED) had seen a 32% increase in ED visits over the previous 10 years, seeing a record 41,000+ annual ED visits in recent years, more than 50% more than it was designed to accommodate.

As our community of patients grew, we were also experiencing a demand for more sophisticated treatments within in our ED, particularly for patients who need a combination of physical, behavioral health and social services.

The existing emergency department was never intended to accommodate such a capacity of patients and services. That is why, with the support of our community, our Campaign for Emergency Excellence is creating a new ED whose expanded size and scope of services will soon allow us dramatically to elevate our already outstanding emergency care for decades to come.

To craft the pioneering design of the new Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center San Pedro Emergency Department, our leadership incorporated input from a broad representation of professional caregivers, volunteers and community members. A multidisciplinary planning team worked in close concert to envision a leading-edge new emergency department, whose design embodies our community’s priorities.

Thanks to the broad investment of our many generous benefactors, that vision is now becoming a reality. Already under construction, Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center San Pedro’s new Emergency Department will include a wide array of upgrades and enhancements for our patients and caregivers, such as:

• Providing Comfort: State-of-the-art private rooms and improvements to the patient experience.
• Expanding our Space: When completed, we will increase from 16 to 28 treatment rooms, while expanding the overall space of the ED from 8,345 square feet to 13,187 square feet.
• Swifter treatments and decreased wait time: We will soon treat patients faster with more ED physicians on duty, more efficient registration services, improved triage and a special Fast Track Unit that can more quickly diagnose and treat ED patients with less severe needs.
• Improving our Behavioral Health services: Psychiatric patients will have their own dedicated space (including access to our ground-breaking Outpatient Behavioral Health Unit), receiving care in a safe and private environment with swift connection to a wide array of inpatient and outpatient behavioral health services.
• State-of-the-art communications: Virtual treatments and access to outside specialists through the Telemed Video Conferencing System; new digital equipment and financial consultations are also available to all who seek our care.

The design of our new emergency department provides patients with a safe and secure environment that offers smooth flow through three connected areas, or “pods.” All of the pods will allow for the easy movement of patients, supplies and equipment.

In addition, the new ED will incorporate a vertical triage bay, a beautifully redesigned front entrance and a specially designed outside waiting area that reduces the risk of infection for patients’ family and friends.

All of this dovetails perfectly with a host of new technologies and the leading-edge approach to caregiving that we are practicing in our emergency department: integrated, multidisciplinary teams of physicians, nurses and supportive staff who warmly collaborate and coordinate care. The ED’s layout and slate of new medical equipment will support this approach, and allow us to treat patients faster and with better outcomes while providing more privacy and comfort than ever before.

When a medical emergency occurs, every minute matters. For a patient who just had a heart attack, or was injured in a car accident, or experienced some other trauma, having the most exceptional, leading-edge emergency care right around the corner can mean the difference between life and death. That truth is in the hearts of our talented and dedicated caregivers every day. It is also at the heart of Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center San Pedro’s state-of-the-art new emergency department.

Throughout the construction of this new ED, and our emergency department remains open. Even in the midst of current construction efforts, our emergency caregivers have been skillfully responding to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic with their compassionate, impactful approach to emergency medicine. This is all part of our commitment to ensuring swift, high-quality care to all community members who need it, 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year.