Newsbreak

Urgent Care Center/Emergency Department access

The hospital complex would have an Urgent Care Center/Emergency Department serving UCSF Children’s Hospital at Mission Bay. The Urgent Care Center would take same-day appointments for non-emergency care. Preliminary estimates are that the Urgent Care Center/Emergency Department would receive about four visits per day by ground ambulance. The vast majority of ground ambulance trips would be for patient transfers that do not involve code 3 (lights and sirens) response.

The general public and emergency vehicle entrance and exit are planned on 4th Street.

Ground ambulances

Ground ambulance transports make up the bulk of all patient transfers to UCSF Children’s Hospital. On average, approximately four ground transports per day are projected (110 per month), with the number of ambulances and their location of origin as follows.

• Projected Monthly Ground Ambulance Transports and Direction of Approach:

  San Francisco	15 per month (14%)
  East Bay	40 per month (36%)
  North Bay	38 per month (35%)
  South Bay	17 per month (15%)

• Projected Average Daily Ground Ambulance Arrival Times:

  7 a.m. – 3 p.m.	1.7 (41%)
  3 p.m. – 11 p.m.	1.6 (39%)
  11 p.m. – 7 a.m.	0.8 (20%)

Key points regarding ground ambulance transfers

• The vast majority of ambulance trips will be for patient transfers that do not involve code 3 (lights and sirens) response. A code 3 ambulance response is limited to the most critical situations.
• Working with neighbors, UCSF will identify pre-designated siren shutoff points on surrounding streets and incorporate those restrictions into our contracts with ambulance providers.
• In consultation with the surrounding neighborhood, UCSF will work with the city to post “Quiet – Hospital Zone” signs at the hospital site.
• UCSF’s current policy requires that all code 3 responses for our transport team must be documented, justified and reviewed by UCSF Medical Center. We currently average less than three code 3 responses (pediatric and obstetric) a month with our team. In addition, pediatric code 3 responses to UCSF by San Francisco 911 ambulance service average 14 a month.

• With a helicopter transport program in place, we anticipate the number of code 3 responses by the children’s hospital transport team to remain the same, even with the projected increase in transport volume over the next several years.
• Without a helicopter transport program, code 3 responses would likely average six per month by the transport team, and we anticipate an increase in responses by San Francisco 911 ambulance service to 20 a month. This would bring the total to an average of 26 a month.