An emergency department (ED), also known as accident & emergency (A&E), emergency room (ER), or casualty department, is a medical treatment facility specializing in acute care of patients who present without prior appointment, either by their own means or by ambulance. The emergency department is usually found in a hospital or other primary care center.
Due to the unplanned nature of patient attendance, the department must provide initial treatment for a broad spectrum of illnesses and injuries, some of which may be life-threatening and require immediate attention. In some countries, emergency departments have become important entry points for those without other means of access to medical care.
The emergency departments of most hospitals operate 24 hours a day, although staffing levels may be varied in an attempt to mirror patient volume.
Accident services were already provided by workmen's compensation plans, railway companies, and municipalities in Europe and the United States by the late mid-nineteenth century, but the first specialized trauma care center in the world was opened in 1911 in the United States at the University of Louisville Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, and was developed by surgeon Arnold Griswold during the 1930s. Griswold also equipped police and fire vehicles with medical supplies and trained officers to give emergency care while en route to the hospital.
Department operation 
Today, a typical hospital has its emergency department in its own section of the first floor of the campus, with its own dedicated entrance. As patients can present at any time and with any complaint, a key part of the operation of an emergency department is the prioritization of cases based on clinical need. This is usually achieved through the application of triage.
Triage is normally the first stage the patient passes through, and consists of a brief assessment, a set of vital signs, and the assignment of a "chief complaint" (i.e. chest pain, abdominal pain, difficulty breathing, etc.). Most emergency departments have a dedicated area for this process to take place, and may have staff dedicated to performing nothing but a triage role. In most departments, this role is fulfilled by a nurse, although dependent on training levels in the country and area, other health care professionals may perform the triage sorting, including paramedics or physicians (DOs or MDs). Triage is typically conducted face-to-face when the patient presents, or a form of triage may be conducted via radio with an ambulance crew; in this method, the paramedics will call the hospital's triage center with a short update about an incoming patient, who will then be triaged to the appropriate level of care.
Most patients will be initially assessed at triage and then passed to another area of the department, or another area of the hospital, with their waiting time determined by their clinical need. However, some patients may complete their treatment at the triage stage, for instance if the condition is very minor and can be treated quickly, if only advice is required, or if the emergency department is not a suitable point of care for the patient. Conversely, patients with evidently serious conditions, such as cardiac arrest, will bypass triage altogether and move straight to the appropriate part of the department.
The resuscitation area, commonly referred to as "Trauma" or "Resus", is a key area in most departments. The most seriously ill or injured patients will be dealt with in this area, as it contains the equipment and staff required for dealing with immediately life threatening illnesses and injuries. Typical resuscitation staffing involves at least one attending physician (DO or MD), and at least one and usually two nurses with trauma and Advanced Cardiac Life Support training. These personnel may be assigned to the resuscitation area for the entirety of the shift, or may be "on call" for resuscitation coverage (i.e. if a critical case presents via walk-in triage or ambulance, the team will be paged to the resuscitation area to deal with the case immediately). Resuscitation cases may also be attended by residents, medical students, nursing students, emergency medical technicians, and/or hospital pharmacists, depending upon the skill mix needed for any given case and whether or not the hospital provides teaching services.
Patients who are seriously ill but not in immediate danger of life or limb will be triaged to "acute care" or "majors," where they will be seen by a physician and receive a more thorough assessment and treatment. Examples of "majors" include chest pain, difficulty breathing, abdominal pain and neurological complaints. Advanced diagnostic testing may be conducted at this stage, including laboratory testing of blood and/or urine, ultrasonography, CT or MRI scanning. Medications appropriate to manage the patient's condition will also be given. Depending on the resolution of the patient's chief complaint, he or she may be discharged home from this area or admitted to the hospital for further treatment.
Patients whose condition is not immediately life threatening will be sent to an area suitable to deal with them, and these areas might typically be termed as a prompt care or minors area. Such patients may still have been found to have significant problems, including fractures, dislocations, and lacerations requiring suturing.
Children can present particular challenges in treatment. Some departments have dedicated pediatrics areas, and some departments employ a play therapist whose job is to put children at ease to reduce the anxiety caused by visiting the emergency department, as well as provide distraction therapy for simple procedures.
Many hospitals have a separate area for evaluation of psychiatric problems. These are often staffed by psychiatrists and mental health nurses and social workers. There is typically at least one room for people who are actively a risk to themselves or others (e.g. suicidal).
Fast decisions on life-and-death cases are critical in hospital emergency rooms. As a result, doctors face great pressures to overtest and overtreat. The fear of missing something often leads to extra blood tests and imaging scans for what may be harmless chest pains, run-of-the-mill head bumps, and non-threatening stomach aches, with a high cost on the Health Care system.
Nomenclature in English 
Emergency department became the preferred term[where?] when emergency medicine was recognised as a medical speciality and hospitals and medical centres developed Departments of emergency medicine to provide services. Other common variations include 'emergency ward,' 'emergency centre' or 'emergency unit.'
Historic terminology still exists across the English-speaking world, especially in vernacular usage. The previously accepted formal term 'Accident and Emergency' or 'A&E' is still widely known in countries such as the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, as are earlier terms such as 'Casualty', or 'Casualty Ward' which continue to be used informally. The same applies to 'Emergency Room' or 'ER' in North America, originating when emergency facilities were provided in a single room of the hospital by the Department of Surgery.
Regardless of naming convention, there is a widespread usage of directional signage in white text on a red background across the world, which indicates the location of the emergency department, or a hospital with such facilities.
Signs on emergency departments may contain additional information. In some American states there is close regulation of the design and content of such signs. For example, California requires wording such as "Comprehensive Emergency Medical Service" and "Physician On Duty", to prevent persons in need of critical care from presenting to facilities that are not fully equipped and staffed.
In some countries, including the United States and Canada, a smaller facility that may provide assistance in medical emergencies is known as a clinic. Larger communities often have walk-in clinics where people with medical problems that would not be considered serious enough to warrant an emergency department visit can be seen. These clinics often do not operate on a 24 hour basis. Very large clinics may operate as "free-standing emergency centres," which are open 24 hours and can manage a very large number of conditions. However, if a patient presents to a free-standing clinic with a condition requiring hospital admission, he or she must be transferred to an actual hospital, as these facilities do not have the capability to provide inpatient care.
United States 
Many U.S. emergency departments are exceedingly busy. A survey of New York area doctors in February 2007 found that injuries and even deaths have been caused by excessive waits for hospital beds by ED patients. A 2005 patient survey found an average ED wait time from 2.3 hours in Iowa to 5.0 hours in Arizona.
One inspection of Los Angeles area hospitals by Congressional staff found the EDs operating at an average of 116% of capacity (meaning there were more patients than available treatment spaces) with insufficient beds to accommodate victims of a terrorist attack the size of the 2004 Madrid train bombings. Three of the five Level I trauma centres were on "diversion", meaning ambulances with all but the most severely injured patients were being directed elsewhere because the ED could not safely accommodate any more patients. This controversial practice was banned in Massachusetts (except for major incidents, such as a fire in the ED), effective January 1, 2009; in response, hospitals have devoted more staff to the ED at peak times and moved some elective procedures to non-peak times.
In 2009, there were 1,800 EDs in the country.
United Kingdom 
All A&E departments throughout the United Kingdom are financed and managed publicly by the NHS of each constituent country (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). As with most other NHS services, emergency care is provided to all, both resident citizens and those not ordinarily resident in the UK, free at the point of need and regardless of any ability to pay.
Historically, waits for assessment in A&E were very long in some areas of the UK. In October 2002, the Department of Health introduced a four-hour target in emergency departments that required departments in England to assess and treat patients within four hours of arrival, with referral and assessment by other departments if deemed necessary. Present policy is that 95% of all patient cases do not "breach" this four-hour wait. The busiest departments in the UK outside London include University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, The North Wales Regional Hospital in Wrexham and the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
The 4-hour target triggered the introduction of the acute assessment unit (also known as the medical assessment unit), which works alongside the emergency department but is outside it for statistical purposes in the bed management cycle. It is claimed that though A&E targets have resulted in significant improvements in completion times, the current target would not have been possible without some form of patient re-designation or re-labeling taking place, so true improvements are somewhat less than headline figures might suggest and it is doubtful that a single target (fitting all A&E and related services) is sustainable.
Critical conditions handled 
Cardiac arrest 
Cardiac arrest may occur in the ED/A&E or a patient may be transported by ambulance to the emergency department already in this state. Treatment is basic life support and advanced life support as taught in advanced life support and advanced cardiac life support courses. This is an immediately life-threatening condition which requires immediate action in salvageable cases.
Heart attack 
Patients arriving to the emergency department with a myocardial infarction (heart attack) are likely to be triaged to the resuscitation area. They will receive oxygen and monitoring and have an early ECG; aspirin will be given if not contraindicated or not already administered by the ambulance team; morphine or diamorphine will be given for pain; sub lingual (under the tongue) or buccal (between cheek and upper gum) glyceryl trinitrate (nitroglycerin) (GTN or NTG) will be given, unless contraindicated by the presence of other drugs, such as drugs that treat erectile dysfunction.
An ECG that reveals ST segment elevation or new left bundle branch block suggests complete blockage of one of the main coronary arteries. These patients require immediate reperfusion (re-opening) of the occluded vessel. This can be achieved in two ways: thrombolysis (clot-busting medication) or percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA). Both of these are effective in reducing significantly the mortality of myocardial infarction. Many centres are now moving to the use of PTCA as it is somewhat more effective than thrombolysis if it can be administered early. This may involve transfer to a nearby facility with facilities for angioplasty.
Major trauma, the term for patients with multiple injuries, often from a road traffic accident or a major fall, is initially handled in the Emergency Department. However, trauma is a separate (surgical) specialty from emergency medicine (which is a medical specialty, and has certifications in the United States from the American Board of Emergency Medicine).
Trauma is treated by a trauma team who have been trained using the principles taught in the internationally recognized Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) course of the American College of Surgeons. Some other international training bodies have started to run similar courses based on the same principles.
The services that are provided in an emergency department can range from simple x-rays and the setting of broken bones to those of a full-scale trauma centre. A patient's chance of survival is greatly improved if the patient receives definitive treatment (i.e. surgery or reperfusion) within one hour of an accident (such as a car accident) or onset of acute illness (such as a heart attack). This critical time frame is commonly known as the "golden hour".
Some emergency departments in smaller hospitals are located near a helipad which is used by helicopters to transport a patient to a trauma centre. This inter-hospital transfer is often done when a patient requires advanced medical care unavailable at the local facility. In such cases the emergency department can only stabilize the patient for transport.
Mental illness 
Some patients arrive at an emergency department for a complaint of mental illness. In many jurisdictions (including many U.S. states), patients who appear to be mentally ill and to present a danger to themselves or others may be brought against their will to an emergency department by law enforcement officers for psychiatric examination. The emergency department conducts medical clearance rather than treats acute behavioral disorders. From the emergency department, patients with significant mental illness may be transferred to a psychiatric unit (in many cases involuntarily).
Asthma and COPD 
Acute exacerbations of chronic respiratory diseases, mainly asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), are assessed as emergencies and treated with oxygen therapy, bronchodilators, steroids or theophylline, have an urgent chest X-ray and arterial blood gases and are referred for intensive care if necessary. Noninvasive ventilation in the ED has reduced the requirement for tracheal intubation in many cases of severe exacerbations of COPD.
Special facilities, training, and equipment 
An ED requires different equipment and different approaches than most other hospital divisions. Patients frequently arrive with unstable conditions, and so must be treated quickly. They may be unconscious, and information such as their medical history, allergies, and blood type may be unavailable. ED staff are trained to work quickly and effectively even with minimal information.
ED staff must also interact efficiently with pre-hospital care providers such as EMTs, paramedics, and others who are occasionally based in an ED. The pre-hospital providers may use equipment unfamiliar to the average physician, but ED physicians must be expert in using (and safely removing) specialized equipment, since devices such as Military Anti-Shock Trousers ("MAST") and traction splints require special procedures. Among other reasons, given that they must be able to handle specialized equipment, physicians can now specialize in emergency medicine, and EDs employ many such specialists.
ED staff have much in common with ambulance and fire crews, combat medics, search and rescue teams, and disaster response teams. Often, joint training and practice drills are organized to improve the coordination of this complex response system. Busy EDs exchange a great deal of equipment with ambulance crews, and both must provide for replacing, returning, or reimbursing for costly items.
Cardiac arrest and major trauma are relatively common in EDs, so defibrillators, automatic ventilation and CPR machines, and bleeding control dressings are used heavily. Survival in such cases is greatly enhanced by shortening the wait for key interventions, and in recent years some of this specialized equipment has spread to pre-hospital settings. The best-known example is defibrillators, which spread first to ambulances, then in an automatic version to police cars, and most recently to public spaces such as airports, office buildings, hotels, and even shopping malls.
Because time is such an essential factor in emergency treatment, EDs typically have their own diagnostic equipment to avoid waiting for equipment installed elsewhere in the hospital. Nearly all have an X-ray room, and many now have full radiology facilities including CT scanners and ultrasonography equipment. Laboratory services may be handled on a priority basis by the hospital lab, or the ED may have its own "STAT Lab" for basic labs (blood counts, blood typing, toxicology screens, etc.) that must be returned very rapidly.
The use of Electronic Medical Records in U.S. EDs has increased rapidly as a result of the 2009 HITECH Act. Companies such as MEDHOST, Inc. and Wellsoft Corporation provide Emergency Department Information Systems (EDIS) that help hospitals meet HITECH requirements. Functionality typically offered by these software systems include real-time patient tracking, clinical charting and clinician order entry, charge capture, and comprehensive reporting capabilities. MEDHOST, Inc. was named Best In KLAS in the Emergency Department Market Segment for Software & Services in early 2012.
Non-emergency use 
Metrics applicable to the ED can be grouped into three main categories, volume, cycle time, and patient satisfaction. Volume metrics including arrivals per hour, percentage of ED beds occupied and age of patients are understood at a basic level at all hospitals as an indication for staffing requirements. Cycle time metrics are the mainstays of the evaluation and tracking of process efficiency and are less widespread since an active effort is needed to collect and analyze this data. Patient satisfaction metrics, already commonly collected by physician groups and hospitals, are useful in demonstrating the impact of changes in patient perception of care over time. Since patient satisfaction metrics are derivative and subjective, they are less useful in primary process improvement.
In the United States, and many other countries, hospitals are beginning to create areas in their emergency rooms for people with minor injuries. These are commonly referred as Fast Track or Minor Care units. These units are for people with non-life-threatening injuries. The use of these units within a department have been shown to significantly improve the flow of patients through a department and to reduce waiting times. Urgent care clinics are another alternative, where patients can go to receive immediate care for non-life-threatening conditions. To reduce the strain on limited ED resources, American Medical Response created a checklist that allows EMTs to identify intoxicated individuals who can be safely sent to detoxification facilities instead. 
Doctors in training 
||The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (December 2010)|
Doctors in training provide a large portion of the medical care in emergency departments.
In the United States, they are called residents and most are supervised by ABEM or AOBEM board certified attending physicians.
In the United Kingdom, many doctors rotate through the emergency department, such as during their second foundation year (F2), or as part of a rotational specialty training programme in General Practice or Acute Care Common Stem training (Emergency Medicine, Acute medicine, Anaesthetics, and Intensive Care).
There are also many other professional positions filled in the ED for those wishing to become doctors; one could become a Scribe (ER), a volunteer, or one could shadow a doctor. All of these positions provide experience and perspective to the future medical student.
Emergency department overcrowding is when function of a department is hindered by an inability to treat all patients in an adequate manner. This is a common occurrence in emergency departments world wide. Overcrowding causes inadequate patient care which leads to poorer patient outcomes.
Frequent presenters 
Frequent presenters are persons who will present themselves at a hospital multiple times, usually those with complex medical requirements or with psychological issues complicating medical management. These persons contribute to overcrowding and typically use require more hospital resources despite the fact that they do not account for a significant amount of visits.
Emergency departments in the military 
Emergency departments in the military benefit from the added support of enlisted personnel who are capable of performing any task they have been trained for, regardless of actual education obtained from civilian schooling. For example, in Naval hospitals, Hospital Corpsmen perform tasks that fall under the scope of practice of both doctors (i.e. sutures and incision and drainages) and nurses (i.e. medication administration and foley catheter insertion). Often, some civilian education and/or certification will be required such as an EMT certification, in case of the need to provide care outside of the base where the member is actually stationed.
Violence against health care workers 
According to a survey at an urban inner-city tertiary care centre in Vancouver, 57% of health care workers were physically assaulted in 1996. 73% were afraid of patients as a result of violence, almost half, 49%, hid their identities from patients, 74% had reduced job satisfaction. Over one-fourth of the respondents took days off because of violence. Of respondents no longer working in the emergency department, 67% reported that they had left the job at least partly owing to violence. Twenty-four-hour security and a workshop on violence prevention strategies were felt to be the most useful potential interventions. Physical exercise, sleep and the company of family and friends were the most frequent coping strategies.
See also 
- Title 22, California Code of Regulations, Section 70453(j).
- Kowalczyk, Liz (13 September 2008). "State orders hospital ERs to halt 'diversions'". The Boston Globe.
- Kowalczyk, Liz (24 December 2008). "Hospitals shorten the waits in ERs". The Boston Globe.
- Gresser, Joseph (18 November 2009). "NC president found hospital a "pleasant surprise"". Barton, Vermont: the Chronicle. p. 21.
- Mayhew, Les; Smith, David (December 2006). Using queuing theory to analyse completion times in accident and emergency departments in the light of the Government 4-hour target. Cass Business School. pp. 2, 34. ISBN 978-1-905752-06-5. Retrieved 2008-05-20.
- "Wellsoft KLAS Performance Ratings Overview", KLAS, Retrieved January 12, 2012
- "Emergency Department KLAS Performance Ratings", KLAS, Retrieved January 30, 2013
- "MEDHOST Attains No. 1 "Best in KLAS" Ranking", REUTERS, Retrieved January 30, 2013
- "Emergency Medical Technicians Use Checklist To Identify Intoxicated Individuals who Can Safely Go to Detoxification Facility Rather Than Emergency Department". Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. 2013-03-13. Retrieved 2013-05-10.
- Aacharya RP, Gastmans C, Denier Y (2011). "Emergency department triage: an ethical analysis". BMC Emergency Medicine 11: 16. doi:10.1186/1471-227X-11-16. PMC 3199257. PMID 21982119. Retrieved 2011-12-09.
- Trzeciak S, Rivers EP (September 2003). "Emergency department overcrowding in the United States: an emerging threat to patient safety and public health". Emergency Medicine Journal : EMJ 20 (5): 402–5. PMC 1726173. PMID 12954674. Retrieved 2011-12-09.
- Markham D, Graudins A (2011). "Characteristics of frequent emergency department presenters to an Australian emergency medicine network". BMC Emergency Medicine 11: 21. doi:10.1186/1471-227X-11-21. PMC 3267650. PMID 22171720. Retrieved 2012-03-01.
- Mandelberg JH, Kuhn RE, Kohn MA (June 2000). "Epidemiologic analysis of an urban, public emergency department's frequent users". Academic Emergency Medicine : Official Journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine 7 (6): 637–46. PMID 10905642. Retrieved 2012-03-01.
- Fernandes CM, Bouthillette F, Raboud JM, et al. (November 1999). "Violence in the emergency department: a survey of health care workers". CMAJ 161 (10): 1245–8. PMC 1230785. PMID 10584084.
- John B Bache, Carolyn Armitt, Cathy Gadd, Handbook of Emergency Department Procedures, ISBN 0-7234-3322-4
- Swaminatha V Mahadevan, An Introduction To Clinical Emergency Medicine: Guide for Practitioners in the Emergency Department, ISBN 0-521-54259-6
- Academic Emergency Medicine, ISSN: 1069-6563, Elsvier
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Emergency department|
- Use of emergency departments for less- or non-urgent care (Canada) (Canadian Institute for Health Information)
- Overuse of Emergency Departments Among Insured Californians (US) (California HealthCare Foundation, October 2006)
- ED visits (US) (National Center for Health Statistics)
- Academic Emergency Medicine, ISSN: 1069-6563, Elsvier
- Physicians on Call: California's Patchwork Approach to Emergency Department Coverage