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LISTEN: An 11-story tower is opening Saturday Feb. 8 on the campus at Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville. The Level 1 Trauma Center now has a helipad and 96 additional beds. GPB’s Ellen Eldridge has more.
Northeast Georgia Medical Center Gainesville can shave more than 10 minutes off the time it takes to get a trauma patient from helicopter to emergency room now that its Green Tower is open, president and CEO Carol Burrell said.
“We have a helipad that’s in a parking lot on the campus, but we have to get our ambulances, put the patients in that and transport them over,” she said. “That can take anywhere from 10 to 12 minutes on a best case.”
Now, the rooftop helipad connects to an elevator that goes directly to the cardiac floor or the emergency room, sometimes, in 30 seconds…