Broadlands Medical Facility

Interest rates going up won't change the fact that a hospital is needed now.

 

I've read through a lot of the posts regarding BRMC and wanted to get a feel for one aspect: do many of the individuals in support of the facility see it as a way to alleviate extended waits at LHC ER?

I'm also curious to know what the requirements are in Virginia for a for-profit hospital having an ER - certain size (SF), percentage of beds compared to the main facility, level of care/equipment, etc.

ER's are not high profit centers of hospitals, I can't imagine that HCA would want to put anything but the minimum effort into the ER portion.

 

Mad Max...the ER waits are not the only issue. There have been waits for beds when it is determined that the patient actually needs admitted. (This statement was confirmed at the Planning Commission meeting on Monday night by a physician that admits patients both to Loudoun and Reston.) These patients are placed in hallways, offices, etc.

As far as HCA putting minimun effort in the ER...that's inaccurate. Have you been to Reston Hospital's emergency room? Far from the bare minimum. BRMC's ER plans also include a pediatrician round the clock....something Loudoun Hosp doesn't offer.

 

I don't think that's unique to any one hospital. My wife and father in-law have both had to wait in the hall at Inova Fairfax and Hospital in Alexandria.

 

MadMax
One of the experiences I had and have talked about is not at all about the E.R. I was in need of surgery (severly deseased Gallbladder) unfortunately after being admitted to Loudoun hopsital I was told that the doctor was ready to operate however you can't operate w/o anesthesiologist. They either didn't want to come in (we were told they don't come in on the weekend unless it is life threatening)or I guess it is against policy hmmm. We discharged me and drove to Reston where the same doctor operated gladly in the wee hrs. of the night. This is an HCA hospital that has been said is out to make money, not take care of the patient. Interesting comparison. THe anesthesiologist at Reston had no problem coming in. Incidently, Loudoun was going to keep me in the hospital on Morphin until mon. when they could operate.

 

Now lets imagine there are 7 buildings each 5 stories tall and a massive parking lot with virtually no buffer zone. This is what TerraBrook envisioned and tried to sell that site for before HCA bought the site. They showed a brochure Monday at the zoning meeting with the original site plan on it and there was almost no buffer and most of the site was paved over for parking.

BRMC will have a significant buffer with trees and will be much less of an eyesore IMO. The hospital will be 630 feet from Broadlands Blvd.

Regarding traffic, once B'lands Blvd. is finished between Belmont Ridge and Glebe View there will be more traffic using it. Any business that locates there will increase that traffic.

My answer to your question is yes. I would probably pay more to have a buffer if the two properties were identical otherwise.

skins fan

 

Donna...these are other issues in your letter and Tony Raker's letter than concern me...
Tony Raker’s letter uses the term “nightclub” in an effort to scare residents. Can you provide documentation that supports that specific use has ever been suggested as a possible use at that property?

Your letter states, "A hospital will lead to increased noise from helicopters and ambulances."
Donna, we live in the vicinity of Dulles Airport and a resevoir that was previously monitored via helicopter for security reasons. I will need to check to see if that is still taking place. 1-3 transports out of BRMC per week will hardly be noticed...besides, is it so bad to hear efforts to save the life of a fellow county resident or neighbor? I followed an ambulance out of Broadlands in the past, and unfortunately I did not document the date and time...this happened months ago...it did not have the siren on, however, the lights were on. I called Fire & Rescue as this issue was being discussed at the time on the forums, and they advised me that it is up to the driver whether or not they choose to use the siren within a residential area. If they feel traffic is giving them the right of way they have the option not to use the siren in a development.

Your letter states, "We don't need another hospital in Loudoun County." That is your opinion, not a fact. The State Health Commissioner has deemed otherwise.

Your letter provides info re: "The differences between a For-Profit vs. a Non-Profit Hospital." You make it appear as if Loudoun Hosp is run solely by the unpaid Board of Directors. What about the salaries of the executives of this hospital so “dedicated to community service”? Does this dedication to community service include the thousands (probably millions once you combine both COPNs) that Loudoun Hospital has spent in an effort to keep HCA out of Loudoun County? A hospital that is so dedicated to community service should not have to put out false info claiming that HCA will run them out of business. Their fine reputation should speak for itself. Current users of their facilities who are happy with their service will return to them. Another hospital will improve their ability to better serve patients, reducing the wait times in the ER and beds for patients that require admittance to the hospital.

Your letter states, “HCA is an unethical, fraudulent company.” HCA made a mistake years ago, paid their fine. They are under new leadership. HCA developed Corporate Goverance Guidelines. You can learn more about them at:
http://www.hcahealthcare.com/CustomPage.asp?guidCustomContentID={9063D16E-FCC7-4B19-B16E-7D1AE911A0A4}

Time to move on.

You ask what type of neighbor will HCA be in our Broadlands community? I think that question can be answered…
… the next time any of our children take the opportunity to use the beautiful playground at Hillside – which HCA contributed to
…or the next time you take the opportunity to use one of those nice blankets that you picked up at the Ashburn Farm Festival back in May from the BRMC table. Approximately 1,000 blankets were given out at that event. Over 220 were given out at the recent Broadlands concert.
…the next time you attend one of the great Broadlands Live concerts. BRMC is a sponsor.
….or the next time you visit Eagle Ridge Middle School…you can take a look at the trophy case that they provided a donation for
….with the Safe Sitter classes BRMC provides that have resulted in the training of approximately 100 Broadlands residents (11-13 year olds). This provides parents with qualified babysitters and mother’s helpers that have completed 12 hours in training. Countywide, 150 students have attended this course.
…with the scholarships awarded by Reston Hospital to 11 high school students, 5 of them from Loudoun County high schools.
…check out Reston Hospital’s website with news on their latest accomplishments. http://www.restonhospital.com/Custo...ontentID=97EFB116-55F9-492E-9510-DE5A2DFCE33C

I think all of the above clearly demonstrates what type of neighbor HCA will be in our Broadlands Community.

Your letter states, “The hospital will lower property values.” Can you provide the documentation to support this statement?

Your letter states, “This location is too close to Loudoun Hospital.” That is your opinion. Why wouldn’t you build a hospital where 77% of the county’s population has easy access and where the Dulles Greenway provides easy access to residents in the West…much easier than Rt 7 to Landsdowne and Rt 50 to South Riding.

Your letter states, “There will be additional traffic and congestion. Anything that is built on this lot will result in additional traffic. Welcome to the fastest growing county in the nation!

Your letter to residents…sounded as if you were speaking as a board member of the HOA. If that is the case, why are funds in excess of $1000 being spent to communicate to homeowners when we already have a newsletter and website for this purpose? Why did you leave out the fact in the letter that you are employed by Loudoun Hospital? If, in fact, “this mailing represents the first in a series to keep you informed on all issues that are important to our community,” who is going to continue to fund these types of mailings? Thunder has posed the question to you on the forum previously…who is paying for these communications…you, the HOA, LHI or someone else?

 

Good questions, Jeanne. I await Donna's response to your questions but especially the last question.

I believe Donna is crossing the conflict of interest line when she sends a letter out making it sound like it came from our HOA board while she's working for LHI/LHC, especially if LHI/LHC paid for it or contributed to it.

 

How about the conflict of interest when the HOA puts out a newsletter in favor of the BRMC even though it's clear through the poll that AT BEST the Homeowners are nuetral. It was a statistical dead heat with the Anti side in majority. The HOA newsletter should NOT be used as a pro-BRMC platform.

Jeanne,

You make good points. Since we got the short end of the stick when the planners divied out zones we have no choice but to take the lesser of two evils.

We do need a new hospital. The sky won't fall if it is not built by 2008 or even 2010. Reston Hospital is a good neighbor but does that guarantee theat the BRMC will be? We had to fight to get maternity services added b/c when they started all this it was primarily going to be all mental with other services as an after thought. If I thought we would be getting the equivalent of Reston that's be great. But are we? It has been pointed out all hospitals are not the same and they have specialties. Is a mental hospital going to do what many people on here have said it will? Will it have an ER? Will it be able to lighten the patient load? This is a Mental hospital. I have serious doubts. The only good thing is that they have proven that they will keep the trees (for now). Is there a way to get community oversight? We have seen from what is going on with the Greenway that the Board of Supervisors is ineffectual. We are on our own and right now we have a chance to make sure we don't get left holding the bag. We only got concession from HCA b/c they ran into resistance. I'm not sure they would have been all touchy feelie if they hadn't and as proof I offer the fact that the first application was aprtially denied b/c HCA didn't have any outreach services. Now they do.

 

I would also like to know the answer to Jeanne's questions to Donna. They are valid questions Donna that people on both sides of the issue would like answered.

 

Homer,

164 beds total. 40 are adolescent mental health which is 24.5% of the total. BRMC is NOT primarily a mental health hospital. Obviously having a new hospital will lighten the load. Please stick with the facts. Oh, and yes it will have an ER.

Regarding the HOA newsletter.
The HOA board doesn't vote based on majority opinion of residents. They take residents comments into consideration but ultimately vote their conscience. When 75% of the homes are occupied, all board members will be elected. Until then we only have a say in the 3 elected positions. If the majority of homeowners don't like thier votes we can elect someone else. Same goes with the BOS, Congress or the President. Not a conflict of interest. Just politics.

 

All the more reason the pro-hospital people should be really ticked that THIS hospital will be wasting a huge percentage of its valuable bed space on shipping psychiatric patients in from Falls Church.

 

Skins fan, will any other single type of service comprise that large a percentage of the total package? If not, I would say (and have said) that that makes mental health services BRMC's specialty. And Homer raises good points about the history of this thing. It has always been largely a mental hospital, with other services taking their place when HCA couldn't slip so many MH beds in. And not to sound like a broken record, but I still haven't seen any stats on how the particular services being proposed in this hospital match up with the desperate health care needs of the county. (i.e., I doubt 24.5% of Loudoun's incoming residents are people in need of inpatient psychiatric services.) In fact, Stroube's approval with respect to the mental health portion seemed pretty clearly to have little to do with the county's needs and much to do with finding a nicer, more therapeutic neighborhood than Falls Church for those psychiatric patients slated to be relocated here. So if the argument is that we badly need more hospital beds, it makes sense to me that you should fight for those beds, not give in to a proposal to solve someone else's (i.e. Dominion Hospital's) problems.

 

I am fighting for the beds and don't think it should exclude physc beds. Who knows type of health care needs any of us will have. The 40 beds could come in handy don't you think? Certainly they're not being made available to scare or torture anyone. Out of curiosity are the Physc beds in Falls church being utilized by say people here in Loudoun county?

 

I've never implied that they are being made available to scare or torture anyone. I know why they're included--to solve Dominion's obsolescence problem. This, as well as the fact they they represent what seems to be a hugely disproportionate number of total beds seriously undercuts the single most widely advanced pro-hospital argument: the desperate need for more "hospital beds" brought on by Loudoun's explosive population growth.

 

Your right Brooks5 you did not imply that. I am just sensitive to the fact that a lot of people opposed to the hospital being here is because of the phsychiatric ward. Now, we are talking about another hospitals problems. I am not up on those, I just know we need a hospital here to meet our needs. Neither of us can prove one way or the other whether or not the pysch beds will be used to their full capacity. sorry if I offended you. That was not my intention.

 

Brooks5...here is the breakdown of what the beds will be used for. This was taken from the COPN.
As you can see, med/surg beds are the primary for this hospital...not mental.


The hospital building itself, will contain 70 medical/surgical beds, 16 ICU beds, 40
child and adolescent psychiatric beds, 12 obstetric beds and a 26 bed progressive care unit
equipped for telemetry. Ventilator care will also be provided on this unit. In addition, the
facility will have seven general-purpose operating rooms, one cystoscopy room and one
endoscopy room. As in Northern Virginia Community Hospital, Broadlands Regional Medical
Center will provide CT Scanner and SPECT services and have a cardiac catheterization
laboratory and angioplasty services to facilitate diagnosis and treatment of cardiac cases.

 

Another perspective on the number of beds is that the state looks at Loudoun as just part of a larger planning district that includes most of No.Va. (not sure of exact area but pretty sure it includes at least Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria). That area is seen by them as having an excess of beds - just not allocated where there is a growing need. There are 264 beds between the two hospitals that are being combined into BRMC, 100 of which are being "de-commissioned" in the process. So in the end, there are 164 beds being moved from inside/near the beltway where there's an excess, to out here where there is a growing shortage.

 

I know all that. Politics do not belong in the HOME. The HOA board just did what they wanted because they can. That's why people don't like HOAs. They should stay out of it and leave what they think to themselves. Why have a vote otherwise? Just so you can ignore it if it doesn't turn out the way they wanted?

 

Thanks Jeanne for the questions, I will responde but it might take a little while since I don't check this forum everyday. Thanks