What to expect in the emergency department

Trips to the emergency department are stressful. This information will help you understand what to expect should you ever have an emergency room visit.

The first step in the emergency room process is called triage. During triage, you will be asked a series of questions that allows the nursing staff to determine how serious your condition might be. Patients who have life threatening problems are seen first. From there, you will be seen in the order of severity of your problem compared to other patients that were triaged.

After triage, if your condition warrants, you might be asked to wait in the waiting room. How long you wait before you see a physician varies and depends on how busy the department is at the time and the number of patients whose conditions are more serious than yours. In addition, the emergency department regularly receives patients by ambulance who are brought back immediately for evaluation and treatment. From the waiting room, the department might not appear busy, however, the staff are busy treating those patients who arrived by ambulance.

Once you are placed in an exam room, the emergency physician will examine you. Diagnostic tests such as labs, x-ray’s, CT scans might be ordered to help the physician determine the cause of your condition. These tests take time to complete and for the physicians to review the results. The average stay in the emergency department is about 3 hours if you are not going to be admitted to the hospital. The physician and nursing staff will talk to you about your condition, review discharge instructions with you and go over any prescriptions that the physician might have ordered. If your condition requires you to be admitted to the hospital, your stay in the emergency department is generally longer. Once a bed is ready, the staff will transfer you to your room and give report to the nursing staff that will be caring for you.

The emergency department is always available to answer your questions. Our goal is to provide you with very good care and to keep you well informed. Patients who are treated and released from the emergency department will receive a patient satisfaction survey in the mail. We are interested in your feed back and encourage you to fill out the survey.