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Morristown’s first free standing emergency department is on track to open on its target date of June 5th.

Morristown-Hamblen West is a Covenant Health hospital. Covenant Health is a Tennessee-based healthcare enterprise committed to providing the right care at the right time and place.

Morristown Hamblen West invites the community to come tour the facility June 2nd from 12pm-4pm. At this time, people will be taken on guided tours of the facility and there will be staff available to answer any questions they may have.

Travis Barner, the Clinical Lead Nurse of the emergency department, says this facility will be a huge asset to Hamblen County as it continues to grow in population,

“Population doesn’t decrease, it’s only increased over the last 60 years, so as a result you have to have more space to treat patients,” Barner said, “People always get sick so you have to expand and that’s what we’re doing here, creating an expansion to help alleviate some of the critical illnesses off of the main emergency department.”

Barner went on to explain that their goal is to prioritize and triage and that by opening this free-standing emergency department, it will help reduce wait times and allow for the main hospitals to better serve their more critical patients.

“That’s the goal here, to take some of the less critical cases and move them here so we can treat them fast and efficiently, and so that allows overall for us to decompress the main emergency department which means you get faster treatment at the main emergency department. If you can just split that group in half, it helps out a whole lot.“ Barner said.

Jacob Forman, the Marketing Manager for Morristown-Hamblen West, says that the Emergency Department will have a huge positive impact on the Lakeway Area’s surrounding hospitals,

“The idea behind a free-standing emergency room is to alleviate the wait times at the main hospital and extend the care options to the community so they can quickly access emergency care,” Forman said.

Forman went on to say that while they won’t be providing inpatient care at this facility, it will allow for quicker care for those needing emergency services, “The goal of this is not to admit patients here, the goal is just to open up care,” Forman said. “If you look at some of the national averages only about 5% of people who visit a free-standing emergency room actually need to be admitted to a hospital. This is about opening up care options and getting it to them quicker.”

“We can handle anything here, but if people need inpatient care, then we have that easily available down the street. We would transfer them to the main hospital.” Forman said.

Morristown-Hamblen West will also be expanding the primary care options in Hamblen County by adding two primary care providers on their second level. Dr. Rainwater and Dr. Brotherton will be joining Morristown-Hamblen West as the two primary care providers stationed there.

Imaging director Emily Blomenburg is the radiology director for Morristown-Hamblen Hospital as well as Morristown-Hamblen West diagnostics center and says they’re excited to be moving the entire outpatient diagnostics center to the Morristown-Hamblen West facility.

The Outpatient Diagnostics Center will have multiple types of screenings available including lung screenings for early detection of cancers. The Breast Imaging Center of Excellence will also be an important addition to the facility and will boast its own women only waiting area.

Blomenburg says they have the addition of a second mammogram machine which will allow them to see more patients and see them quicker.

“We have a lot of new equipment in our Breast Imaging Center of Excellence, including a second mammography machine.” Blomenburg said.

“This facility will allow for decompression and allow us to see patients quicker. Our goal is to be able to see women in the breast center in an expediate fashion, because we all know that anytime you’re told that we need to look at something a little bit further, anxiety goes up, so if I can get them in here right away, or if we can get treatment started and get them to the cancer center, that will be huge.” Blomenburg said.

Blomenburg describes the new 128 scanner as state-of-the-art equipment and says they’re excited to be able to offer this to their patients, “We’re very excited to bring this to Morristown, we were able to move to the next level and it’s very exciting. We’re really excited to have the support of our administration to buy additional equipment and be able to serve our community in this way.” Blomenburg said.