Excerpts from WREX.com:
When an emergency happens in Winnebago County … Rockford Memorial Hospital is dispatching doctors to the scene to meet up with patients before they get to the the emergency room. [Known as] MD-1, a white SUV, [carries] a doctor and medical equipment.
“It’s a 24-7 operation so those doctors are on-call much like a volunteer firefighter and they go out. All hours of the day and night,” says Dr. Jay MacNeal, RockfordMercy, EMS director.
The program is run out of Mercy Hospital. They’ve been doing it for three years in Rock and Walworth Counties in Wisconsin. “Our experience in Wisconsin is this greatly increases the quality of the patient care,” MacNeal says.
Now that Mercy Health System owns Rockford Health System it wants to dispatch the emergency doctors in Winnebago County. MD-1 will carry some unique things that most paramedics from this area do not carry like a video intubation machine. It helps gets an airway established in the field.
They’ll travel farther if needed. Last month, one of these roving doctors was sent to Woodhaven Lakes Campground after it was hit by a tornado.
Since then, MD-1 has been back in Winnebago County helping shooting victims and roll over crash patients.
MD-1 says it does not bill patients for their services. They consider this a community service program. They also will help take patients to the closest hospital even if it is not Rockford Memorial.
