The emergency room is the last place anyone wants to be, but fortunately for patients at Bristol Hospital, Randy Groop will be the first person they see when they get there. Groop, 54, is the guy in a buzz cut, white goatee and ear-to-ear smile who has been meeting patients at Bristol Hospital’s emergency room for 20 years as an emergency room technician.He’s also the lynchpin of the care unit’s award-winning staff.
If Groop brightens what can be a scary or traumatic experience for someone, he knows he’s done his job.
“The great thing is when you have that patient who is feeling better, is being discharged, and wants to know where you are because they want to say ‘good-bye’ to you and thank you,” said Groop. “That’s a victory.”
Groop became an emergency room technician in 1994, after working first as an emergency medical technician out of the same hospital. Before that, he worked in construction until friends and family told him that he should be working with people. Staff at Bristol Hospital liked Groop’s personality and work ethic so much that they created the new position for him.
He’s the department’s utility man.
Every day he shows up to the hospital at 6 a.m. From there he does a check of the care unit, noting supplies and making orders for everything the department needs. When patients arrive, he greets them, takes vital signs and monitors them along with nurses and doctors.
In some cases he’ll take blood work, splint broken limbs and perform electrocardiograms for heart patients. The rest of the time he spends stocking linens in patient rooms and refilling supplies for the staff.
But the frenetic pace suits him — as do the emotional and physical demands of the emergency care unit. That’s been true, Groop says, ever since his very first call as an EMT, when he provided aid to an elderly woman who had been assaulted in her apartment building.
“You see things that don’t happen everyday,” in the emergency room, he said. “And that’s what touched me. There’s some bad stuff that happens in society, and I wanted to be part of correcting it.”
And he plays a significant part at Bristol Hospital where he’s a member of an emergency room care unit that ranked highest out of all state hospitals for patient satisfaction in 2013, according to Press Ganey, an organization that monitors healthcare performance. The hospital received a rating of 95 that year, which is based on patient surveys.
Bristol Hospital isn’t immune to the financial challenges that a lot of state hospitals face. Across the board, Connecticut hospitals are dealing with decreasing state aid and cuts to Medicare. There’s also the issue of uncompensated care and other cutbacks.
But other state hospitals don’t have Groop.
As a way to help the emergency room’s most vulnerable patients, Groop began collecting bottles and cans around the hospital, using the money to buy clothes — sweatpants, shirts, jackets — for the care unit to provide to patients leaving the facility. He’ll also occasionally pull money out of his own pocket for unit supplies, like a pediatric doppler purchased from Amazon.
Josie Soucy, who leads the emergency care unit in the hospital, stressed how vital Groop is to the staff.
“Our entire staff works extremely hard to meet the expectations of our patients, but Randy goes above and beyond,” she said. “There aren’t a lot of people like Randy.”
Groop said it’s the kind words and happy patients that keep him jazzed to show up at work at 6 a.m. everyday.
“I want people to be able to say that if they have to come back, they’re happy to come back to Bristol Hospital,” said Groop. “If you’re willing to come back to us, it’s a great thing. It tells me that we’ve done our job.”
