ATLANTA — Grady Memorial Hospital is currently working a new system that will hopefully decrease the wait times in the hospital's emergency room.
Dr. Robert Jansen, the Chief Medical Center for Grady, explained the system is partially in response to the influx of patients the hospital has received since Atlanta Medical Center began closing.
"We have seen an increase in volume, but one of the things that we know is that a lot of patients who come to emergency rooms don't really need to be there. And there are alternatives," he told 11alive's Karys Belger.
Wellstar, the company that oversees AMC, first announced the hospital would be closing in September. The emergency room at AMC closed on Oct. 11. Jansen says he and the staff at Grady were caught off guard by the announcement, but he's been working to find ways to accommodate the influx of patients.
The nursing helpline is one of the ways the hospital system is planning to do this. The idea is for a patient to call ahead instead of going straight to an emergency room. After hearing about a person's symptoms, a staffer would then guide them to the ER or to the walk-in clinic.
"Right now, almost every hospital is overflowing. And so if you go to an E.R., you are going to wait a longer time, particularly if you don't have a true emergency."
Jansen went on to explain that a sore throat, a small cut, and a viral illness are better treated at an urgent care facility where there is less hectic activity and someone is more likely to receive care in a prompt manner.
"You're bleeding. That's probably a different thing. That's an emergency room. You have an acute pain that you can't explain and it's really, really severe. That's a different thing."
The helpline is in the final stages of development and Jansen says it should be available in the coming weeks.