Covenant Medical Center has announced plans for a new emergency department. We at Allen Hospital support this news. It's important to the Cedar Valley, and we all will be better off when their new department opens.

Like Covenant, Allen cares for 30,000 people a year in our emergency department. The Allen emergency department is literally the front door to the hospital for the majority of our inpatients, and it's vital for tens of thousands of emergency outpatients. A quality emergency department often means the difference between life and death for people who are critically injured or ill. With stakes that high, patients, families and medical staff in the Cedar Valley deserve the best facilities we can provide.