Houston Luxury and Hi-Tech Hospital

Flat-screen TVs, gourmet coffee and an Xbox are things that may be found in a fancy hotel's lobby, but what about in an emergency room's lobby?

All of those things can be found in the lobby of Emergency Heath Centre in Willowbrook.

"This is the face of emergency medicine in the future," said Chief Operating Officer Art Goetze.

The 15,000 square-foot, $10 million state-of-the art facility has a country club setting where the goal is a fast, accurate and pleasant emergency room experience.

"The goal is meeting a 90-minute turnout from the time that they arrive to the time that they are physically walking out." Founding partner Dr. Ben Oei said.

Earlier this year, Local 2 Investigates found that emergency room wait times for non-critical patients can range from one hour to 48 hours.

"They waited and they waited and they waited," one patient said.

"I don't think the system works the way it should," another patient said.

Oei has spent more than 10 years working in emergency rooms and said he realized the delay was often waiting for test results.

"So as the emergency room gets busy and the hospital is also providing a busy inpatient and outpatient schedule, it's tough sometimes to fit in our emergency room patients," Oei said.

Emergency Health Centre has its own laboratory, so results come back in less than 30 minutes. The 64-slice CT scanner produces three-dimensional images in seconds.

There are no paper charts and filling out forms at the center is paperless. Patient information is electronically accessed and can be easily updated.

"Each of our patients, when they arrive, will check in on a tablet PC. The PC is set up such that it stores their patient demographic information so they only have to fill it out once, the first time they come in," Goetze said,

Patients also have the option of checking in on their Web site.

The center is open 24-hours a day, 7 days a week. It is geared toward patients with insurance and Medicare, but will not turn away the sick and indigent, doctors said.

Five similar facilities are planned for Houston and officials plan to eventually expand statewide.