The hospital’s current ER was designed to handle around 35,000 patients per year — annual visits are already approaching 10,000 more than that.
Union Hospital officials are also closely watching the outcome of the Supreme Court’s decision on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, preparing for more patients with pent-up healthcare needs should the Court decide to keep the individual health insurance mandate provision written in the law. The hospital envisions an increase in patient load if the individual mandate stays and more people have health insurance because there aren’t enough private-practice physicians in the area to meet a large influx of new patients, according to the report.
The hospital hopes to draw up a request for proposal to build the $10 million ER expansion this summer.
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