Emergency Department

Hardin Medical Center has a nine room Emergency Department which served over 17,000 patients in 2007 alone. HMC's Emergency Department is staffed 24 hours per day by an ER physician and additionally 12 hours per day by either a nurse practionioner or a physician's assistant.

We are proud to announce two initiatives in emergency care at Hardin Medical Center. We are teaming with well-known healthcare systems to enhance the level of care for patients who present with chest pain or symptoms of stroke. Both demonstrate our ongoing commitment to provide you with “Quality Care … Right Here at Home.”

St. Thomas Affiliation Improves Opportunities in Chest Pain Care
A ribbon-cutting ceremony recently publicized the opening of the Saint Thomas Chest Pain Center at Hardin Medical Center. The affiliation with St. Thomas and HMC’s new accreditation by the Society of Chest Pain Centers signals a new level of quality in the treatment of patients who present to the facility’s Emergency Department with symptoms of chest pain. The facility has implemented new protocols that meet or exceed quality standards for acute cardiac medicine and has met the Society’s other stringent criteria for accreditation. “The Society and Saint Thomas are leaders in the growing field of chest pain centers,” stated Charlotte Burns, HMC’s CEO. “ Saint Thomas’s reputation is well known with regard to treating cardiac patients, and they have a mission and a passion to see that every chest pain patient is given the best opportunity for survival and recovery. We are proud of our affiliation with them.”

The Society’s systematic approach to patient management allows physicians to reduce time to treatment during the critical early stages of a heart attack, when treatments are most effective, and to better monitor patients when it is not clear whether they are having a coronary event. Such observation will help ensure that a patient is neither sent home too early nor needlessly admitted. Patients who are experiencing a heart attack and require additional cardiac care can then be transferred to Saint Thomas or to other hospitals in Nashville, Jackson, or Memphis. HMC is the 11th in Saint Thomas’s network of 13 chest pain centers.

Telehealth Links HMC and Vanderbilt for Stroke Victims
HMC Emergency Department (ED) physicians will soon consult with Vanderbilt neurologists regarding treatment for patients experiencing stroke symptoms. Hardin Medical Center was selected as the only rural hospital in Tennessee to participate in a Telestroke Pilot Project that is producing positive outcomes in Georgia and New York. The project links a rural hospital, like Hardin, with a “hub” hospital, like Vanderbilt, via televideo equipment. The neurologist at Vanderbilt can then consults with the ED physician at HMC, see and speak with the patient, review the transmitted CT exam, and make recommendations regarding treatment of the patient, such as whether TPA—the “clot buster” drug—should be administered and whether the patient should be transported to a larger hospital or remain at HMC for further treatment and monitoring. “There is a small window of opportunity in treating stroke victims with TPA, and this project brings the expertise of a neurologist virtually into the ED here in Hardin County. We expect the project to greatly enhance the care and outcomes for stroke patients at HMC,” stated Dr. Michael L. Smith, medical director of HMC’s Emergency Department. “We are grateful to have been selected for this project by the state, the American Heart Association, and the American Stroke Association.”