Teamwork Saves a Young Man's Life in Marshall, MN

News from one of our affiliated facilities, in Marshall, MN. From the Independent:

As a member of the Marshall hospital board of directors, Mike Rich has been involved in improving the hospital’s high-tech abilities — making it faster for local doctors to share emergency information with doctors at other hospitals.

A month ago, Rich found out exactly how important the changes he’s pushed for have been: They saved his son’s life, he believes.

“The ER doc knew we had to get him out immediately,” Rich said.

Rich had been to the ER before Matthew’s accident. With Matthew, the ER situation was different because it had been just over a year since Avera Marshall switched to a on-staff ER doctor 24-hours-a-day, seven days a week.

The change from an on-call doctor to a doctor always in the ER was expensive-about $800,000 in a contract, Rich said.

But on Feb. 2 Rich knew it was worth every dollar.

“The doctor was really a super guy,” Arlene Rich said of Dr. Scott Goecke.