Emergency medical services crews are bolstering their numbers to respond to the increasing number of residents in and around the city. Both the Georgetown EMS and Williamson County EMS departments have plans to expand their fleets.
“As long as the population continues to increase, that means more people equals more call volume,” Williamson County EMS Director Mike Knipstein said. “Our projections are that we would add at least one ambulance per year to keep up with the call volume.”
Similar efforts are also underway at the city’s only hospital, St. David’s Georgetown Hospital, as the provider has taken steps to expand urgent care facilities, heart health care and the number of physicians in the city. Meanwhile, Ascension, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit health systems, is nearing completion on the first phase of a new medical center in Georgetown where a host of outpatient services will be offered—all part of a common effort to address a growing and aging patient population.
“[Georgetown] really has changed significantly in a short period of time where you’re dealing with a lot of older adults, but on the other side of the spectrum, it’s a lot of young families also at the same time coming up,” said Raymond Anderson, chief strategy officer for Ascension Texas.
Emergency responses
St. David’s is taking heart-related care a step further as plans are in place to install technology for a catheterization, or cath, lab at the Georgetown site.
Cath labs, which can be used for both outpatient and inpatient care, allow medical teams to examine arteries and chambers of the heart before treating any abnormalities found. While patients admitted into a cath lab often originate as outpatients, they can also be brought in for life-saving procedures in the event someone is experiencing a heart attack.
Georgetown EMS already takes the majority of its transports to St. David’s Georgetown Hospital. However, fire Chief John Sullivan said when emergency medical technicians or paramedics assess a patient who has a high likelihood of experiencing a heart attack, they will bring them to Ascension Seton Williamson Hospital, St. David’s Round Rock Medical Center or Baylor Scott & White Medical Center Round Rock. Once Georgetown gets its own cath lab, though, first responders will have one more place to bring patients in an emergency.
“As they get a cath lab, then that’s where it would lend itself for patients that are having [myocardial infarctions] can be transported there,” Sullivan said. “I think that’s a huge thing for the community—that they have that capability.”
The area EMS services are also adding to their fleets to keep up with the growth. Georgetown EMS operates with five full-time ambulances. The department aims to add additional ambulances during the busier parts of the day to work 10- to 12-hour shifts.
Georgetown is the only city in Williamson County other than Austin that has its own EMS department. The remainder of the county is served by the Williamson County EMS, which only typically answers calls to Georgetown when there has been a request for mutual aid.
Knipstein said the department has 16 ambulances working 24 hours a day and three more ambulances working during the daytime. The department is set to add one more crew to serve the Round Rock area later this year, while Knipstein also put in a request for another ambulance to cover the Liberty Hill area next year.
Outpatient expansions
St. David’s HealthCare and Ascension Seton are both looking to offer a more comprehensive level of health care services to Georgetown with much of the focus on outpatient services.
Ascension’s new 60,000-square-foot facility, expected to open sometime in late June or early July, will include specialty services, such as orthopedics, heart and vascular, dermatology, gastroenterology, and general surgery.
Furthermore, two more buildings—each 60,000 square feet—are planned for the 12-acre property. Anderson said the site has the potential to serve the city’s and region’s evolving needs, including services for women’s care and pediatrics.
“It really has the opportunity to provide its own clinician ecosystem within the area to meet the evolving health care needs and really fill the gap that had been there historically so that we can treat both older adults but also really be the preferred place for young families,” he said.
In mid-May, St. David’s announced it acquired 10 FastMed Urgent Care centers throughout Central Texas with the purpose of rebranding them as St. David’s CareNow Urgent Care facilities later this year. Of those, one clinic at 4506 Williams Drive, Georgetown, will offer care for nonemergency illnesses and injuries, such as sprains and strains, minor burns, coughs, sore throats and flu-like symptoms.
Kyle Landry, the CEO of St. David’s Georgetown Hospital, said the provider is working to put in place a cardiovascular imaging center outside of the hospital.
“Where [patients] might have to get imaging services in the hospital previously, now they can get it on more of an outpatient basis,” he said. “There’s a lot of other things that we’ll be looking at and evaluating to make sure we meet the needs of the patient.”
A new medical office building on the St. David’s Georgetown campus is also in the works. Construction has not started, but St. David’s HealthCare CEO David Huffstutler said the organization is “pretty far down the path on that development.”
“That will enable us to bring some additional physicians on to the campus and some additional outpatient services—some oncology services, specifically,” he said.
Patient population
The new outpatient facilities and emergency services are part of an ongoing effort to meet all of Georgetown’s needs, which include care for a large senior population along with a growing number of young families moving into the area.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 28% of the Georgetown population is age 65 and older, compared to the cities of Round Rock, Austin and Cedar Park, none of which have a senior population greater than 10.1%.
Taking a look at the Sun City corridor in Georgetown, Sullivan said 1 in 3 calls the EMS department responds to involves a person who has fallen.
He said health leaders are starting to look at certain causes, such as people who have developed untreated glaucoma or cataracts, but a more common issue is a trend in prescription drugs for which the side effects outweigh the benefits.
“The reality is we’re starting now to look at the different medication that patients are on, especially if they fall, to identify when they get out of the hospital how they can improve the safety in their home or [how] physicians can work with them to try to improve their quality of life as well as reduce the risk of them falling again,” he said.
For the second straight year, Georgetown was the fastest-growing city in the country with a population above 50,000. Between July 1, 2021, and July 1, 2022, the city grew 14.4% for an estimated 86,507 people. Williamson County has also seen a significant increase in recent years with an estimated population of 671,418 people as of July 1, 2022, compared to the county’s 456,144 residents a decade prior.
While health care leaders agreed the services available are enough to meet the current demand, they are also paying close attention to the city’s increasing population.
“There’s really not that much [missing],” Landry said. “We just need to make sure that we invest in the right areas to meet the needs of our growing community.”
