Courtesy Photo A MyMichigan Health Ambulance is parked outside the emergency room in Alpena in this photo provided by MyMichigan Medical Center Alpena.

On Tuesday, MyMichigan Medical Center Alpena placed its emergency department on diversion status from around 5:30 p.m. until 8:50 p.m. and needed to redirect ambulances to out-of-town hospitals.

When a hospital calls for diversion, it forces ambulances in the area to transport patients to other emergency departments in the area because of an overwhelming amount of patients in the local emergency department or because there are no beds open or resources have become limited.

Thomas Thornton, M.D., vice president of medical affairs trauma director for MyMichigan Medical Center Alpena, said such a scenario played out on Tuesday because action needed to be taken so the situation wouldn’t worsen.

“Emergency Department diversions occur when there is an influx of patients to the point where the staff cannot safely accommodate another patient,” Thornton said in an email. “When this occurs, a hospital goes on a diversion status, meaning they notify local ambulance and EMS services that they cannot currently accept patients. Patients who come to the Emergency Department are not turned away but may experience a longer wait time, depending on their condition. While these diversions are not a common occurrence, when they do happen, Emergency Departments work together with their community partners and other local hospitals to ensure any patient experiencing an emergency is safely transported and cared for at a nearby facility.”

When the Emergency Department goes on diversion, they alert other EMS companies that they have a decreased ability to care for incoming patients and to divert to a different hospital in the best interest of the patient.

“A diversion does not include patients who are experiencing a life-threatening event, such as a heart attack, major trauma, or a cardiac arrest, where minutes matter,” Thornton said.

Prior to going on diversion, many steps have already been taken, including attempting to add staff or providers, seeing patients in non-traditional areas of the hospital, such as hallways or asking patients to see a provider in a private area and returning to the waiting room to wait for results.

“This is not a routine time, and every emergency department at MyMichigan Health is committed to providing emergency services to everyone who requests it by ensuring the least amount of time is spent on the status of diversion,” Thornton said.

Alpena Fire Chief Rob Edmonds said this was only the second time in his 28-year career as a firefighter in Alpena that he saw the hospital issue a diversion order. He said thankfully, the local ambulance service, which covers all of Alpena County, only had to transfer one patient to another hospital.

He said staff transferred a patient to Otsego Memorial Hospital. But, he said, if the order had come a few hours earlier, the department itself would have been nearly overwhelmed and had as many as seven ambulances on the road to other hospitals, which would have left limited emergency coverage in Alpena County.

Edmonds said the Alpena Fire Department is working with the My Michigan Health System to assist in any way it can to help avoid a similar situation down the road.