How good are Bend hospitals? (Portland: appointed, transfer, live in)

[ManWithNoName]

What is the reputation of CHS and other local hospitals? I live in a small town, 20,000 with lots of retirees, and we hear a lot of bad about the local hospital. When you check the web, you only see general info such as the mortality rate for a hospital which can be similar to others? I was hoping the locals could be more able to expand on the local take on this subject.

[delta07]

St. Charles is the only hospital in Bend. Bend Memorial Clinic (BMC) is also located in Bend, but is not a full service hospital facility. My husband works at St. Charles and has found it to be a very good hospital overall. However, he says to not go to BMC.

[Bendite]

I have recent experience with both facilities here in Bend. Several months ago, I broke my leg and went to the urgent care at Bend Memorial Clinic. BMC is not an ER facility, the only ER is at St. Charles. I was well taken care of during my visit at BMC - no complaints. There are some fine health care professionals at BMC, but there have been recent gripes about how the doctors are managed and their turnover is greater than it should be.

Recently at St. Charles, my husband had a medical emergency. He was taken in right away (they do triage, so the higher the emergency, the sooner the care). The staff and facilities were excellent. My husband was transferred to the hospital for one night for observation. The rooms all seem to be private, though equipped for two people if the space is needed. The rooms are very nicely appointed and the waiting areas outside the rooms are comfortable. The care was excellent, the food not so bad for a hospital (patients order off a menu when they want to eat, not when it is convenient for the staff. Also, there is a separate menu for visitors that can be delivered to the room if they don't want to go to the cafeteria).

With the exception of mental health care which seems to be weak for the size of this community, Bend has an extraordinary quality of health care professionals - probably because of the lifestyle draw. Particuarly strong in cardiovascular.

[Marvin J. Lein]

Originally Posted by delta07

St. Charles is the only hospital in Bend. Bend Memorial Clinic (BMC) is also located in Bend, but is not a full service hospital facility. My husband works at St. Charles and has found it to be a very good hospital overall. However, he says to not go to BMC.

With all due respect to the previous post, BMC competes with St. Charles for your urgent care services needs. Competition makes everyone try harder to provide the best in care. BMC, for whom I work, provides superb urgent care in two locations in Bend, eastside across from the hospital and westside. Board certified emergency medicine physicians provide a broad range of care and are known for their clinical skills and caring manner. BMC supports its urgent care services with a brand new expansion and over 100 specialty care providers and can provide immediate imaging such as CT and MRI scans on-site at eastside for the most complete care.

[ak.nessa]

With serious emergencies anywhere in Central Oregon, typically people use life flight and fly into Portland and use OHSU. They can do so much more and are more high tech than any hospital in central OR. I wish it would change because sometimes there is not enough time to make it to Portland...

[Steve97415]

I wrote an assessment of smaller hospitals vs. larger hospitals elsewhere, but here's the gist of it again. If better care to you means a building with more architectural panache, more specialists and a greater array of expensive idiosynchratic equipment, you'll get your version of "better care" only at a big Trauma 2 or Trauma 1 medical center in a major metropolitan area. Expect to help them pay for their expensive overhead as well.
If you define better care in more human terms -- getting seen promptly, getting a careful diagnosis, and getting more than a series of noncommittal grunts from overstressed, sleep-deprived interns and overscheduled nurses, you might not find what you're looking for in a big-city hospital.

[tulani]

My experiences with Saint Charles are five emergency room visits within 8 months (all different emergencies that required immediate treatment) from July '08 - March '09. On each visit I waited just a short time to be taken back to an exam room. The care was exceptional and prompt. Follow up care was required and the ER doc made all the arrangements for me.