Our Services
Emergency Department
Many events in our lives are unplanned and unexpected. But that doesn't mean we have to be unprepared. To meet emergency health care needs, Stevens Emergency Department (ED) is ready—24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Stevens treats more than 44,000 patients each year and we’ve made recent changes to our ED to enhance the care we provide including the addition of three new patient exam rooms and implementation of TeleStroke and Rapid Medical Evaluation programs.
TeleStroke – A Team Approach to Diagnosing and Treating Stroke
When someone is facing a potential or actual acute stroke, Stevens Hospital has partnered with Swedish Neuroscience Institute (SNI) to assess and diagnose patients via “virtual” bedside neurological evaluations. The TeleStroke partnership provides an as-needed link between the Stevens ED team and the comprehensive team of stroke specialists based at the Swedish/Cherry Hill campus in Seattle.
With the help of a secure, video-conferencing network, members of SNI’s Stroke Program in collaboration with Stevens ED physicians are able to fully evaluate a patient’s symptoms and quickly select the best acute stroke treatments including the use of tPA, or so called clot-busting drugs. If administered to a patient within three hours of the first stroke symptoms, tPA can dissolve a blood clot and reverse the devastating effects of stroke.
“When a patient is brought to Stevens ED with stroke symptoms, TeleStroke allows me to directly consult with stroke specialists at Swedish 24/7, so there’s no delay in evaluating and treating the patient,” says Richard Campbell, MD, assistant medical director, Stevens Emergency and Trauma Services. “It’s a team approach to diagnosing stroke patients quickly and most importantly, evaluating them for treatment to stop the stroke and potentially reverse the effects of stroke.”
Rapid Medical Evaluation (RME)
In February 2010, Stevens Hospital became the first hospital in Washington state to implement Rapid Medical Evaluation® (RME) – a new streamlined approach to registering, assessing and treating emergency patients. Unlike the typical emergency department registration area, RME patients are asked to provide basic information at the initial step of registration, such as providing their name and social security number. Then they are fast tracked to a vital signs station where basic body functions including blood pressure, temperature and respiratory rate are measured. From there, patients may go to one of the three new exam rooms where a more detailed registration process and medical assessment of their condition can begin.
“We’ve changed the way we collect patient information and where the initial medical assessment of a patient is done,” says Michelle Gill, MD, medical director of Stevens Emergency and Trauma Services. “RME patients are evaluated in a dedicated exam area by the appropriate medical provider – a physician or physician assistant. As a result, patients are evaluated more efficiently and safely.” says Dr. Gill.
Implementation of RME at Stevens Hospital began with a partnership in 2009 between Stevens and CEP America – a nationally recognized emergency physician group dedicated to improving emergency department staffing, enhancing management efficiencies and building teamwork.
CEP America serves nearly three million patients a year at more than 70 practice locations around the western U.S. and has a strong record of achievement in:
- Decreasing the time that emergency department patients wait before receiving care;
- Improving the efficiency of the emergency departments they manage;
- Increasing patient and employee satisfaction, which
- Results in higher quality care for patients and reduces staff turnover.
