Wheat Ridge to allow freestanding emergency care facility to be built on Wadsworth corridor in the Colorado city
At June 9's Wheat Ridge City Council meeting, an ordinance was passed that effectively paved the way for freestanding emergency departments to be built and operate within the city limits.
CBS
One such area is slated to be on the corner of 38th Street and Wadsworth Boulevard.
"(This) for the first time allows freestanding emergency departments to be built in mixed use zones," said Dan Larson, Wheat Ridge's District 4 Councilor.
Freestanding emergency departments -- also known as freestanding emergency rooms -- are effectively emergency care facilities not attached to a hospital. If someone is dealing with a life threatening condition, first responders can take them to a facility like this before deciding if they will send them further to a full-service hospital.
The condition of giving this lot of land to HCA Healthone, who operate Rose Medical Center in Denver, is that the freestanding ER also be a part of a larger medical campus in the adjacent plaza on 38th. The total size of the lot is about 5 acres.
While the ordinance passed in a council meeting on Monday, it wasn't without some resistance from residents and health care professionals. One big issue revolved around individuals' understanding what freestanding ERs actually are.
"It cannot and does not provide a level of care to the level of a real hospital and many of your elderly especially at Wheat Ridge," said Douglas Martel, a former cardiologist at Intermountain Lutheran, during public comment.
Critiques like his specifically revolved around cardiac emergencies like heart attacks or strokes. Freestanding ERs, he argued, were not capable of handling those types of emergencies the same ways that full service hospitals are and thus might confuse potential patients and lose them precious time to be treated.
"If you want to keep excellent care in your community and for your constituents you will oppose this ordinance," Martel advocated.
Other issues from residents included billing and insurance coverage as well as accessibility. Freestanding ERs built a reputation in the early 2010s for "being predatory," as Larson put it, to patients with exorbitant costs that they didn't account for until after treatment. Councilman Larson told CBS Colorado that a big reason the freestanding ER was on the table was because of Intermountain Lutheran's move to the west side of town, creating a need for an emergency care center on the east side. Additionally, Larson said, the regulatory standards for these types of clinics had been changed, allowing Wheat Ridge to not worry about having too many of these services in ways others have.
"The regulatory environment in the state of Colorado in terms of licensing, in terms of building practices has changed," Larson said. "The city of Wheat Ridge has changed."
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