[Scan-DC] Jumped / Fell from Washington Adventist Pkg Garage

[Radioinstl]

What happens when someone is transported by 911 vs transferred by a hospital is very different.  If this was just a 911 call, they would just load them in the medic and drive to MedStar.


The problem is this happened on the hospital property.  Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), “hospital property” means the entire main hospital campus as defined in §413.65(a), including the parking lot, sidewalk and driveway or hospital departments, including any building owned by the hospital that are within 250 yards of the hospital.  There for the patient is a patient of the hospital and they must treat and stabilize the person.  Since this was a trauma and beyond the care level of the hospital, it then became a inter-hospital transfer. It was most likely quicker and easier to get a chopper there than arrange for a ground inter-hospital transport.  


Just my guess....


Also, while Joe said "Then also know  that it is hospital policy at both Shady Grove and Washington Adventist hospital that they do not respond to emergency calls on the exterior grounds of their hospitals - they are just not set up for it"  While this may be a "policy" it is in direct conflict with federal law.  "If an individual who is not a hospital patient comes elsewhere on hospital property (that is, the individual comes to the hospital but not to the dedicated emergency department), an EMTALA obligation on the part of the hospital may be triggered if either the individual requests 
examination or treatment for an emergency medical condition or if a prudent layperson observer would believe that the individual is suffering from an emergency medical condition"


So once someone with an emergency, on the hospital property, presents to a hospital employee, the hospital will most likely have an EMTALA requirement to respond and treat them.  Let say someone breaks their hip and tries to drive to the hospital.  Their get to the hospital parking lot and can not get out of the car.  They flag down someone from the hospital to help them.  As of that point they are a patient of the hospital and the hospital must treat and stabilize them.  Now if the hospital is not equipped to get them out of the car and in to the ER, they may call 911 for assistance,  But they remain a patient of that hospital and under their care and must only be transported to that hospital.  They can not be transported elsewhere with out going through a inter- facility transfer which requires lots of paperwork and and facility that has agreed to accept them.




Scott Glazer

"Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 18:37:23 -0800 (PST)
From: Doug Kitchener <oldsdoug at yahoo.com>
To: Scan- DC <scan-dc at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: [Scan-DC] Jumped / Fell from Washington Adventist Pkg Garage
Message-ID:
	<1385865443.71618.YahooMailNeo at web122104.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Alan just posted on fb that a woman jumped or fell from the top of the parking 
garage at Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park MD... and apparently was 
_flown_ (_not_ taken by ground) to Medstar (Irving Street NW DC), less than 5 
miles away... can anyone shed any light on why she was flown rather than taken 
by ground?? That seems really odd to me, waiting for a helo, etc.? One would 
assume that there was possibly some sort of initial treatment at WAH (although 
not necessarily), but again, why not go by ground?

(I have heard EMS calls for people who have fallen in hospital parking lots...)"