Millions of patients go inside emergency rooms each year to get medical attention. With the popular medical drama series, everyone appears to be baffled with the 24 hour action hospital department having emergency nurses going about and treating critically wounded victims.
So how does an emergency room really work?
The writer of How Emergency Room Works, Dr. Carl Bianco, states that the triage is the key person in the emergency room process. A triage is an emergency nurse who classifies and prioritizes the patient’s situation. The three categories are:
1. immediately life threatening
2. urgent, but not immediately life threatening
3. less urgent
The triage is likewise in charge of recording the patient’s vitals which are pulse, respiratory rate, temperature and blood pressure. The triage also gathers the brief patient history, medications and allergies to end up with the appropriate category.
Registration is the next step. Additional information is asked from the patient. Primarily insurance information and then the creation of medical record for reference while inside the hospital. In the case of life threatening circumstances such as a car crash, registration can be accomplished later on.
The patient will then go to the examination room where an E.R. nurse will gather more elaborate information regarding the sickness. There are a few hospitals that have separated their emergency department into areas devoted to a chest-pain ER, pediatric ER, a fast track ( minor injuries and illnesses), an observation unit (for patients who don't need hospital admission but requires extended treatment or diagnostic tests) and a trauma center (generally for seriously injured patients).
When the nurse has accomplished the duty, the emergency doctor will do a thorough review of the information gathered from the patient. He then contrives a potential cause or diagnosis according to the symptoms.
Diagnostic tests are needed if the physician discovers that the symptom of the patient and physical examination did not obtain a plausible diagnosis. But when diagnostic tests are able to identify the probable cause, necessary actions are set about to treat the patient.
Experience in the emergency room could be rough and tough. It is essential for us to realize the how matters work to see why some emergency room or departments would take a while to handle patient issues. It is important to control one's temper all the time. It is also crucial not to lie about your symptoms only to get attention ahead of other people. When things are truly getting bad and no one from the emergency section is assisting, search for the house phone and inform the issue to the hospital executive or patient advocate who is available 24 hours.
