New emergency care at Sharon Hospital

SHARON -— The medical options at Sharon Hospital are growing exponentially now that it has joined Health Quest, the New York State not-for-profit group of four hospitals with headquarters in LaGrangeville.

Sharon joined Health Quest last August, and the new parent company had promised upgrades to services available to patients in most departments — including billing. 

Doctors and staff were interviewed at the end of December, for updates on some of the new menu items available to Northwest Corner residents.

This week’s interview is with Pamela George, director of emergency services at Sharon Hospital.

The change at Sharon that  people seem most excited about is the change in the Emergency Department from EMCARE to HealthQuest, which happened on Jan. 1.

Part of the new benefit for community members will be in billing and insurance, George said.

“I know there were issues where local insurance wasn’t accepted or paid well,” she said. “We lost some patients because of it. That should change.”

Medically, she said, “We have a solid group of physicians here. Dr. Ron Santos, who has been our medical director, has been building a good team.”

The nursing department is also fully staffed, she said, and “our nurses are all certified in Advanced Cardiac Life Support. We are a stroke center and have been for years.”

The new/old configuration of the Emergency Department will give patients the best modern medical care, with access to the doctors and facilities of the other Health Quest hospitals. But it will also return some of the intimacy that Sharon used to be famous for.

“Sharon Hospital has always had a reputation for being a place where members of the community were taking care of other members of the community, family caring for family,” George said. “I think that’s always made us stand out. 

“Here in the emergency room, they aren’t just good doctors and nurses; everyone really cares. They love what they do and they care about the people they take care of.

“But even though we’re a little hospital, I make sure all the nurses have advanced training.”

She said she feels that Health Quest “is very invested in our success and our growth, more than other companies in the past. And it’s a benefit that our partners are close by, we can network with our sister hospitals. 

“Which is good; you never know what kind of cases are going to walk through that door.”

Speaking of which, she said that the majority of cases that come to the Emergency Department are “chest pain, stroke, extremity injuries, sore throats and colds. The number one is abdominal pain; that can be caused by a lot of things, UTIs, gastroenteritis, appendicitis, gall bladder.

“Except for last month. The chief complaint was cough.”

Whatever the concern, bring it to Sharon Hospital. 

“We love the community we serve,” George said. “We don’t want people to be sick or injured, but if they are, this is the place to be.”