Emergency Department

[Name of the institute]

Emergency Department

Introduction

Emergency department (ED) is a round-the-clock unit of a hospital. The department receives patients who need immediate medical attention. The incoming patients in ED have a variety of conditions and levels of severity. The hospital provides a wide range of services in the casualty unit. The kind of services in emergency care sector depends upon the hospital size and classification.

Discussion

Emergency healthcare staff uses Emergency Severity Index ((ESI) to sort patients according to their health condition (McHugh et al, 2012). The ESI classifies emergency department into five levels of care. Level-I is for critically ill patients, and level-V is for ambulatory care patients. The nursing staff triages the patient on arrival in ED. The healthcare workers do not attend patients on 'first come, first served' basis in ED. The health practitioners prioritize patients in life threatening condition.

The American hospital association defines community hospitals as private sector and specialized healthcare units (http://www.aha.org/research/rc/stat-studies/fast-facts.shtml). Specialized care means the hospitals excel in a particular field of medicine, e.g. maternity homes. The patients stay in community hospitals for a short term.

Some hospitals associate themselves to medical universities as the site of clinical teaching. The teaching hospital is a general care hospital. It has specialized care units as part of the facility. Medical students and resident prefer teaching hospitals over community hospitals due to high exposure to clinical situations. The teaching hospitals are large-scale care providers and have high quality equipments.

The paper compares the emergency departments of teaching and community hospitals. The Northside hospital represents community hospital while the Emory university hospital is an example of a teaching hospital. The hospitals are located in Atlanta, Georgia. Both the emergency departments are 24/7 working units of the hospitals.

The Northside ED prides itself for providing excellent emergency care to patients in a speedy way ...