The Lebanon Express from Lebanon, Oregon • 4

A4 Lebanon (OR) Express, Wednesday, November 14, 2001 Urgent Care Center provides private triage Kropf appointed to task force Emurgoncy Urgent Carti 1 11 X- District 37 Representative Jeff Kropf (R-Halsey) is one of seven Oregon legislators named to a new House Special Task Force on State Emergency Preparedness. Kropf was appointed to the task force due to his experience in agriculture and emergency services, according to information from Speaker of the House Mark Simmons, who is chairing the group. Kropf is a fifth generation farmer and a volunteer fire captain with the Halsey Fire Department. The task force will not limit itself to issues surrounding possible terrorist attacks, Simmons said, but will look at the impact that large events, such as those in New York and Washington D.C. on Sept.

11, can have on the state's emergency response capability. It will investigate the current status of the emergency management plan and address any gaps in the plan and the communication among the appropriate agencies, the Governor's office and the legislature. The task force will consid- In the new Urgent Care Center Emergency Room at Lebanon Community Hospital, patients will find two private triage rooms. In those, they can explain their reasons for being there to a nurse, without an audience of everyone in the waiting room. Paperwork is completed right there by means of a window to the reception office.

From the triage rooms, patients are directed either to urgent or emergency care. Patients who arrive with what is obviously an emergency bypass the triage process. Examples of conditions that, require emergency room care are uncontrolled bleeding or severe chest pain. Ambulances deliver patients to a separate entrance directly to the emergency area. One of the advantages of the arrangement is the ease with which patients can be upgraded from urgent care to emergency, said hospital officials.

About 50 people attended a ribbon-cutting to the new facility on Friday. The fusion of urgent care with emergency care in one location is unusual, said emergeny room physician Leslie Pliskin. Nationwide, 99 percent of the time urgent care is a free-standing service. In that situation, if a patient including those involving public health, transportation, energy and technology. It will seek" to improve communication and coordination with the Office of Emergency Management and the Governor's office and to identify potential partners such as the new federal Office of Homeland Security.

Other members of the Task Force are Rep. Alan Bates (D-Eagle Point), the chief of medicine at Rogue' Valley-Providence Medical Centers; Rep. Jim Hill (R-Hillsboro), director of Internet operations at Wellpartner; Rep. Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose), a licensed pilot who has served as the manager of the Aeronautics Division of the Oregon Department of Transportation; Rep. Randy Leonard (D-Portland), a lieutenant on Fire Boat 17 for' the Portland Fire Bureau; and Rep.

Max Williams (R-Tigard), who has a law degree from Lewis and Clark's Northwestern School of Law and has knowledge of legal issues to assess the state's potential liabilities in emergency situations. Lebanon Community Hospital officials and members of the Lebanon Area Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors participate in a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new LCH Emergency and Urgent Care Center. (Photo by Robert Erickson) needs emergency care, an ambulance must be called for transit "We just have to put someone on a gurney and wheel them down the hall," Pliskin said. Construction continued without closing down the emergency department. The urgent care center has four patient rooms, one with a door, and a work station for doctors and nurses.

Payment is required at the time of service, either in full or as insurance co-pay. According to a brochure about the new columns at tiw head of each bed. A private waiting room in the emergency area is available to families of critical patients. Other services, including imaging and lab, are easily accessible, Rahmun said in a tour of the facility. The emergency room is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The urgent care center is open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday; 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday; and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

on Sunday. It is closed on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. service, the cost is about the same as the cost of visiting a physician in his or her office and less than the cost of emergency room care. The emergency room has nine beds, five in private rooms, and two each in two trauma and critical care rooms. Glass doors to the trauma rooms allow doctors and nurses to monitor patients from their central work station while at the same time separating patients from noise outside the room.

Curtains provide privacy as needed. Medical equipment attaches to er potential emergencies, NOW OFFERING I Open enrollment if (rk E-BILL NEW ONLINE BILL PAY SYSTEM Consumers Power Inc A member-owned electric cooperative (800) 872-9036 (541) 929-3124 www.consumerspower.org enrollment applications will be mailed to parents no later than Aug. 1, except some turned down previously due to full classrooms may receive notification by Sept 1. That may happen when registration in August reveals unknown openings because of students leaving the school during the summer. When school begins next year and the school district downsizes from 11 to eight schools, many students' neighborhood school will change.

Parents will need to make open enrollment requests in the spring based on schools in operation in Sept. 2002 school or because it is in the best interest of the student. If approved, open enrollment applications for an individual student or several children in the family will be available at all schools in the spring and are due back to the school by May 1. Applications will be approved unless the school's enrollment cap has been met, the school is within two students of being full at the student's instructional level, or the move would result in his or her neighborhood school falling below the minimum registration. The proposed policy specifies a lottery procedure to be used if more students request enrollment at a school than there are available spaces.

The lottery, which will determine a ranking by which applications will be accepted, will take place no later than July 1. Ranking will be in this order Students who need more time at their current academic level, but who would benefit by a change in schools. Siblings of students already enrolled at the school. Students who previously lived in the attendance area but have moved. All others.

The decision on open Continued from page Ali her neighborhood school may continue in that placement as long as space is available and parents and school administrators agree. If a student is moved because of parental request, the parents are responsible for daily transportation unless space is available on an appropriate bus. If the district assigns a student outside his or her neighborhood school, the district will provide transportatioa The school district may place a student at another school because of overcrowding at his or her neighborhood Click Clack "The Tappet Brothers" Talk Gars By Tom Ray Magliozzi DON'T DRIVE AROUND IN THAT THING Dear Tom and Ray: engine compartment and entering We have a '97 Ford Eseort with the ventilation system through the 19,000 miles. Recently, we've noticed cowl in front of the windshield, the strong smell of exhaust coming in TOM: And last time we checked, through the air conditioner or heater Lysol does not neutralize carbon almost every time we come to a monoxide (shame on those bozos complete stop. This only happens for suggesting that).

You need a when we have the fan on with the vent mechanic who is willing to take a intake open. I have to switch the air little time to find the leak, off every time I come to a stop in RAY: If it's a very small leak, the order to avoid this. We also notice the best way to pinpoint it is with an smell from the front seat when we emissions wand the kind that's have the windows rolled down. My Used in state emissions tests. The wife confessed that she ran over a mechanic passes the wand around concrete parking barrier recently, and inside the engine compartment, and she feared there was some damage when the needle goes bonkers, he's underneath.

1 took the car to our local found the site of the leak. Ford dealership and then to a national RAY: Find someone who's willing muffler chain. Neither of them found to find this leak for you and who'll anything wrong. They both suggested fix it, Greg. And in the meantime, if 1 spray air freshener in the air vents, you catch yourself calling our radio The smell is definitely exhaust, and show, seek medical attention wie're concerned it might be immediately, dangerous.

Greg TOM: We're concerned, too, Greg. If it ain't broke, you won't have to As you might know, one of the early fix -it! Order Tom and Ray's symptoms of carbon-monoxide pamphlet "Ten Ways You- May Be poisoning is confusion and poor Ruining Your Car Without Even judgment. And look you've Knowing It!" Send $3 (check or already written to us for advice! money order) and a stamped (57 RAY: You clearly have an exhaust cents), self-addressed. No. 10 leak, Greg.

And it probably IS the envelope to Ruin, PO. Box 536475, result of your wife hitting the parking Orlando, FL 32853-6475. barrier. The front pipe of this car's exhaust system runs down from the Got a question about cars? Write engine under the front of the car, and to Click and Clack in care of this it probably got jolted, creating a small newspaper, or e-mail them by leak somewhere. And the leaking visiting the Car Talk section of exhaust is wafting up through the cars.com on the World Wide Web.

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