FAQFAQ
Last Updated on Friday, 28 October 2011 08:03 Written by Eric Thursday, 27 October 2011 08:48
Q. How can you tell if there are enough hospital beds?
A. In the United States as of 2007, there are 2.7 hospital beds per 1000 people. In Hawaii, there are 2.3 beds per 1000. On Maui, there are 231 beds. Our population is currently 143,574. We have an average daily tourist census between 40,000 to 50,000.
143,574 people
45,000 tourists per day
188,574 people on any given day in Maui.
188,574 divided by 1,000 people = 189 thousand. If we were to have the national average of 2.3 beds per 1,000: We would need 435 beds on Maui. We currently have 231 beds. On any given day we have 41 + people taking up those beds who are “waitlisted” patients. This means they no longer need to be hospitalized, but there is nowhere to send them. Therefore, we have
231 beds
-41 less being taken up by waitlisted people (one recent day there were 61 waitlisted patients)
190 beds we have available on any given day.
This means Maui has about 1 bed per 1,000 people which leaves us dangerously underbedded.
Q. What services will Malulani Health and Medical Center provide?
A. Our goal is to keep our Maui Ohana and tourists on Maui. We plan to provide complete services so there will never be a need to go off island for care. We plan on free ferry service to Molokai and Lanai’i with shuttle buses for patients, families and workers.
We will have services that focus on wellness also.
We plan on offering the more traditional Western medicine along with alternative medical practices.
Q. Who will be able to use Malulani?
A. If you need medical care, and you are on Maui, we welcome you.
Malulani is for the people of Maui, and our tourists. People from other islands and countries will also be welcome. Malulani will be a private hospital. This is different from a private school or other private organization. In the case of a private hospital, “private” means that the government of Hawaii is not paying for the hospital, nor is the government running the hospital. A private corporation who excels in running hospitals will run Malulani. Just like a government hospital, no one will be turned away, regardless of ability to pay or any other reason.
Q. How will Malulani compare to our current hospital?
A. Due to its larger size, it will be able to afford the money losing services such as a Level 1 Trauma Center. Emergency rooms are expensive to run. It is worse when you have a smaller hospital as the income isn’t there to use for services that lose money. The ER would thus have more resources when the hospital generates more money and thus has the ability to pay for it.
Currently, it is eight hours from heart attack on Maui to the time the patient is in the hands of the appropriate staff and facility on Oahu. This doesn’t lend itself to a good outcome for the patient. We will strive to decrease that time as much as is humanly possible. In larger hospitals, there are triage nurses in the emergency room who will send cardiac patients to the Cardiac ER Center. Cardiac patients are separate from the other ER patients and they do not wait. Once in an ambulance, the paramedic calls ahead and the cardiac team is ready and waiting when the patient arrives. This allows our cardiac team to have immediate access to equipment and staff able to stabilize and treat the cardiac patients immediately and have good outcomes.
The ER will also have an Urgent Care area where patients who do not need true emergency care are channeled so that they do not take up staff time and cause delays for true ER patients. These patients will still receive the care that they need. This will help with insurance companies refusing to pay for ER visits which are not actually emergencies.
Q. How will Malulani interface with the West Maui Hospital?
A. Malulani will work closely with the West Maui Hospital. As a smaller hospital, the West Maui hospital will not have the resources to take care of all patients. When they have a serious trauma, cardiac patient, or premature birth, they will be able to stabilize the patient. Malulani’s transport team is eight minutes away by helicopter. The patient will be taken to Malulani. When the patient is then stable and on the mend, if the West Maui hospital has room, we can then back transfer the patient to West Maui. This way, the patient will be near their family.
As we are an island, we must work together with a spirit of aloha and cooperation. If the West Maui hospital becomes overcrowded, Malulani would need to be willing to take patients. If Malulani were to become overcrowded, patients who live in West Maui would then have the choice of being transferred to that hospital. It is possible to share staff. This will prevent staff being ‘sent home due to low census’. If we work together, the staff member could have the choice of working for the day at whichever hospital was busier.