Methodist Stone Oak Hospital administrators are so confident in its Emergency Room service that the hospital is posting the wait time on its Web site, www.StoneOakHealth.com, and on an electronic billboard at Highway 281 and Evans Road.

The hospital, which opened in March, offers a full-service emergency department with 28 exam rooms and a staff of physicians all board certified in emergency medicine. The emergency department features Fast Track emergency care which treats patients according to the severity of their condition, not the time of arrival. A triage nurse evaluates the patient to determine if Fast Track is appropriate for the presenting medical condition or if a higher level of care is needed. Through the Fast Track program, patients can receive prompt diagnosis and treatment for non-critical illnesses and injuries such as colds, flu, sprains, minor injuries, rashes, simple cuts and others.

“Our emergency room is another example of our high tech, high touch focus,” said Dean M. Alexander, CEO of Methodist Stone Oak Hospital. “We have the latest equipment and specially trained staff so that quality emergency care is available to everyone at any given time. We have a lot of growing families in the surrounding neighborhoods and knowing that emergency care is available to them in a timely manner is important to them.”

The wait time from the emergency department admitting window to a station in the emergency room is posted on the hospital Web site. When the Web site is updated every four hours, the digital billboard located at Highway 281 and Evans Road is updated as well.

If you are interested in doing a story, please phone Shirley Wills at 822-2378 or 365-4488(cell) or JoAnn King, 575-0171. The electronic billboard makes an excellent visual. With advance notice we can identify a patient who came to the Emergency Room after seeing the wait time on our Web site or the electronic billboard and is willing to be interviewed. For media assistance during the weekend, please phone Methodist Hospital, 575-4000, and ask for the public relations representative on call.