Baptist Medical Center Beaches

A Continuous Focus on Improving the Patient Experience at the Beaches’ Only 24-Emergency Center.

Baptist Beaches provides the area's only 24-hour emergency center backed by a full-service community hospital. The Emergency Center serves as the front door to the hospital for more than 80 percent of its inpatients, giving our talented emergency staff the opportunity to positively influence many of our patient experiences from the very beginning of their symptoms. Paulette Marshall, the Emergency Center Director, demonstrates the passion and dedication of entire staff. Read Her Story to understand why great emergency care is about more than just great medicine.

Knowing that a time of medical emergency, pain or illness is when a patient and family most need outstanding, responsive care, Baptist Beaches constantly monitors the efficiency and effectiveness of its Emergency Center. There are ongoing Patient Satisfaction Surveys and a continuous improvement initiative. The findings have led to a variety of innovations, including:

• Using communication to reduce patient anxiety
• Improving pain management
• Making follow-up calls to discharged patients
• Providing staff education about service excellence and service recovery
• Celebrating success with staff recognition

The Emergency Center offers a number of convenient, personalized and life saving services:

• Fast Track Emergency Service – allows patients with acute but non-life-threatening conditions to be seen more quickly by a staff of family practice physicians.
• Life Flight – if a patient needs highly specialized care, the Emergency Center is linked by Life Flight air ambulance to Baptist Medical Center in Jacksonville and other area facilities.
• Patient Ambassadors – the Emergency Center staff includes patient ambassadors specially trained to provide support and comfort to patients and their companions who are dealing with the stress of an emergency visit.

The Emergency Center is extremely capable in the area of pediatric care and is the place to go should your family have a pediatric emergency. In the case of a surgical need or a life-threatening situation, the Emergency Center team assesses the patient situation and can arrange for a rapid transfer to the Emergency Center at Wolfson Children’s Hospital, the region’s only specialized pediatric emergency center and a member of the Baptist Health family of hospitals.