On Tuesday, the UNM Health Sciences Center Committee met with the UNM Board of Regents to discuss important agenda items, including the replacement of some of UNM Hospital’s outdated medical facilities.
UNM Regent Marron Lee called the meeting to order and Chancellor for Health Sciences Paul Roth presented the plans for designing and building more modern medical facilities.
To answer questions in regards to the strategy of HSC, Roth presented the current conditions of the medical facilities, especially concerns about the amount of beds they currently hold and patients being transferred into, as well as out of, the current facilities.
“We currently serve the whole state of New Mexico,” Roth said. “Unfortunately we have to divert many, many patients that really needed to be in our facility to other places, where they just stay in the rural community hospitals.”
HSC has already been working with an architectural firm in the first days of planning for the replacement of these facilities and is “somewhat on schedule,” Roth said.
The intent is to “simply roll out” what the total project size will be and then, given the financial situation, see what the first days will look like and where a potential site for construction will be, he said.
The condition and age of the Psychiatric Center is also a concern, as Roth claims it is “very, very old.”
“This, as we have said in other settings, is something that is extraordinarily important for the community,” Roth said. “Things we have discussed with the county commission for many, many years and, of course from the public’s perspective, the need for more advanced and comprehensive approach for behavioral health is a priority.”
CEO of UNM Hospitals and COO of Health System Steve McKernan said that in the past it was thought best to separate psychiatric patients from other patients when building the psychiatric facilities.
“Modern thinking is that’s kind of silly, because most modern patients with psychiatric disorders also have other medical issues and it is viewed as another medical condition,” McKernan said.
The time it takes for some patients to be seen and treated was another major concern for HSC, as patients have been known to have to wait three days in the ER, Roth said.
“The way this has all expressed itself, just in general terms, is that the ER was this place that stored our patients for us as they were waiting to be admitted,” Roth said. “The more efficient we are in processing the patients in and out of the hospital, the fewer number of hours the patients will be waiting.”
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Through a PowerPoint presentation, Roth introduced the goals of the new facility: to shift low-level acuity, increase efficiency, improve post-acute care, design better hospitals and provide larger facilities.
UNM Regents Thomas Clifford and Marron Lee asked about the number of hospital transfers that are currently being accepted, and those that are being turned away.
Together, Roth and McKernan explained the current situation the hospital faces. They explained that about 350 transfers are accepted each month, 60 people a month are transferred out of UNMH to different hospitals, and about 100 people are turned away each month.
“This is a big issue and while we don’t have any data that would say what the mortality rates are or the morbidity rates are associated with those we do not help take care of, we do have anecdotal stories of what has happened in other situations,” Roth said.
Roth said the Health Sciences Center Committee will meet with the regents again in the coming months to offer more information regarding the plans for new facilities.
Nichole Harwood is a news reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Nolidoli1.
