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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

St. Mary Medical Center Emergency Department, Apple Valley, Calif., Receives the 2004 Operation of the Year Award.

Contact: Sarah Hay
800.476.1504
hays@cep.com

(October 2004, Oakland, Calif.,) -St. Mary Medical Center Emergency Department, Apple Valley, Calif., has received the 2004 Emergency Department Operations of the Year Award from California Emergency Physicians (CEP) Medical Group. St. Mary Medical Center Emergency Department provides care to more than 40,000 patients each year.

This Emergency Department site received the award as a result of its multi disciplinary team approach to addressing departmental challenges, implementing innovative solutions and sustaining improvements. Since CEP began staffing the Emergency Department in 2002, St. Mary has decreased patient wait times to see a physician more than 70 percent, from 100 minutes to less than 20 minutes. This success was accomplished through the implementation of the Rapid Medical Evaluation (RME) Program – an initiative that allows the treatment process to begin as soon as the patient enters the Emergency Department. RME includes an initial assessment, ordering of lab work and X-rays, and in some cases, rapid discharge – often without utilizing a bed in the Emergency Department.

In addition, this site has reduced the number of patients who leave without being seen to less than 2% (registered patients who leave the Emergency Department before being seen by a medical provider). David Bolivar, MD, Emergency Department Medical Director states, “The Emergency Department staff has been instrumental in creating an effective team approach enabling us to maintain our success rate. We have a strong physician-nurse relationship and are especially proud to receive this award from CEP, as well as gain recognition within the St. Joseph’s Health System in Southern California.”

“Our ED team of physicians and nurses has raised the bar for emergency care in our community thanks to their efforts to successfully implement innovations. In addition, St. Mary Emergency Department is a state leader in cardiac care, scoring among the best hospitals in California,” said Michael Sequeira, MD, CEP’s Regional Director for the Inland Empire.

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CEP was founded in 1975 and is the leading provider of physician staffing, management, and consulting services for Emergency Department and Ambulatory Care Practices in California. To date, CEP includes more than 1,000 providers, 53 Emergency Departments, and 19 Ambulatory Care Practices. For more information on CEP, visit their website at www.cep.com.