Etmc Specialty Hospital

Description

Our story

The story of the East Texas Medical Center Regional Healthcare System is as new as the most sophisticated medical technology and as old as the need to care for one another

Our philosophy of service transformed what was once one hospital drawing referrals from its surrounding area into a seamless system of primary secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities and services throughout East Texas A system with one mission bringing to the people of our region the care they deserve care that is first in East Texas second to none

philosophy of service to the region

The philosophy of regional service that drives the ETMC Regional Healthcare System originated in the mid1970s At that time a study showed that although patients from outside Smith County accounted for more than half of the patient days at East Texas Medical Center Tyler no organized effort had been made to establish formal referring relationships with hospitals in other East Texas communities

In fact those smaller hospitals saw ETMC as a competitor especially as the hospital began to acquire more sophisticated technologies

A future vision
ETMC management however saw a future in which the Tyler hospital could serve as a tertiary care referral center for smaller communities and could help those communities deliver better primary and secondary care

They began to work toward realizing that vision

Two goals
During the 70s ETMC had two goals first to create formal relationships with East Texas communities and second to diversify the range of services ETMC could make available to those communities

The opportunity to pursue those goals presented itself in 1983 when Henderson County Hospital in Athens Texas became available to consider association with ETMC

During the course of developing a relationship with the Athens hospital the philosophy of service behind todays ETMC Regional Healthcare System evolved

The first tenet of that philosophy was that the success of any relationship with another community would depend on successful performance delivery of what was promised to the local hospital and more

The second was that the Tyler hospital was committed to enabling that community hospital to provide as many medical services as possible locally rather than concentrating services in Tyler

The magic of shared resources

More than a million people call East Texas home They live in communities ranging in population from fewer than 500 to more than 50000
And every year we serve more than 300000 of them

ETMCs strategy is to provide care in rural areas whenever possible
The system is organized so that primary care is provided in the rural health clinics Secondary care is also provided locally in the ETMC affiliate hospitals Highlevel secondary and tertiary care is provided at ETMC Tyler

ETMC EMS provides emergency care and medically necessary transportation within the region and ETMC Home Health covers the entire system