Presently Trinity is not addressing the need for orthopedic services in its service area. The community’s premier orthopedic groups are located quite close to competing facilities making it inconvenient for them to perform more than occasional surgeries a Trinity but several practices are planning to open branch offices near the hospital campus. These branches are scheduled to open within the next 3-6 months. In conjunction with these opening, 11 physicians have applied for privileges at Trinity. The timely development of an orthopedic program would allow Trinity to compete with their competitors and address the needs of the community.
There are 4 cardiologists on staff at Trinity. These cardiologists restrict their activities to performing consults for physicians whose patients have been admitted to the facility. Since there is no diagnostic cath lab, they order only noninvasive studies such as echocardiograms, stress test and holter monitoring. The community is in real need of additional capacity to diagnose and treat cardiovascular illness. Trinity is in the process of developing a cardiovascular program. They have partnered with a group to help development this program however Trinity must put the necessary resources in place such as a state of the art cath lab and a cardiac rehab program to implement this service line. With the availability of this cath lab many patients could be diagnosed and treated at Trinity who now has to go to other