Brookwood emergency room facility to open this fall

More lives on the U.S. 280 corridor could be saved beginning this fall, when Brookwood Medical Center opens a freestanding emergency department in the Greystone area near Alabama 119.

Hoover City Council President Jack Wright said the $19.5 million, 25,000-square-foot facility will fill a need for residents desiring emergency medical services but wanting to avoid traffic congestion on the busy highway. The council supported the project in January by approving incentives valued at $900,000.

“How do you like to be stuck in traffic on 280?” Wright said. “When you’re having a heart attack or a stroke, every minute counts.”

In May, UAB Medical West opened a $13.5 million freestanding emergency department at Alabama 150 and I-459, making Hoover the first city in Alabama with such a facility.

Brookwood’s freestanding ER will be led by Dr. Conrad Brown, who relocated in late March from Dayton, Ohio, to become administrative director of emergency services for the Homewood-based medical center. Brown said the facility will have plenty of amenities to meet emergency needs, including 12 private rooms, two mental health rooms, a trauma room and rooms to handle X-rays, mammograms, gynecology and other services.

Brown said the freestanding emergency department will be able to handle full-fledged medical emergencies similar to what patients receive at Brookwood Medical Center. Having worked at trauma centers across the country, Brown said he is excited by how the facility could give the gift of life by saving crucial travel time to get care.

“The patients who will be coming from the neighborhoods on 280 will be able to get immediate access to the emergency department,” he said. “For those patients who need to be admitted, we will transfer them over to our main hospital. We will have the capability to initiate and start treatment there and then do seamless transfer of patients here for continuity of care.”

Mike Rickman, the chief development officer at Brookwood Medical Center, said the center will help the hospital better serve patients who currently live in the 280 area and beyond. In addition to treating emergency patients, it will also offer outpatient care, Rickman said.

“A lot of folks think that the strategy for the freestanding ED was related to [Trinity’s] Grandview relocation, but we filed for this before that,” Rickman said. “This has to do with us meeting the community’s needs and seeing what showed up in our current emergency department.”

Brown said the freestanding ER facility on 280 will essentially be an off-site department of Brookwood Medical Center. Brookwood hasn’t decided on the number of employees that will staff the facility. The roster will include emergency-trained physicians, a medical director, registered nurses and support services. An onsite lab will be available 24 hours a day, as well as a pharmacy to provide medications on-site.

Asked about how many patients the ER facility on 280 will treat, Brown said the initial goal is 10,000 annually, or about 28 patients per day. He expects that number to rise over time. 

Brown said Brookwood Medical Center will begin a “very vigorous marketing campaign” to spread the word to both residents and medical emergency personnel as the fall opening approaches.

Like the UAB Medical West ER facility on Alabama 150, Brookwood’s 280 facility will have a helipad capable of flying out patients needing treatment at its main hospital.

“We will also have 24-hour on-site ambulance service as well, which others don’t,” Brown said. “The ambulance 24 hours is specific to us.”