Emergency Medicine

Ellis Medicine operates two full service emergency departments (EDs) - one at Ellis Hospital and the other at the Ellis Health Center. Each year, these EDs register more than 76,000 visits.

Both EDs are fully staffed 24/7 and provide all levels of care. However, any patient who comes to the Ellis Health Center's ED who needs to be admitted to the hospital is stabilized and transported to Ellis Hospital, where all inpatient acute care is centralized.

The hospitals long term plan includes the construction of a new, larger emergency department at Ellis Hospital that can better accommodate the community's emergency care needs. The hospital expects to eventually convert the Ellis Health Center's ED into a 14-16 hour ED/Urgent Care Center.

ED Highlights

Ellis Hospital's ED features an innovative Physician In Triage (PIT) program through which an emergency room physician becomes part of the initial triage process. The doctor conducts an assessment of the patient and writes orders for pain medications and any necessary laboratory or diagnostic testing. The PIT program aims to further enhance quality of care and to reduce wait times for patients.

"The PIT program runs from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week," Ellis' Director of Emergency Services John Voight says. "To date, during the hours in which the PIT operation is in effect, from a patient's arrival in the ED to the time he or she sees a physician is averaging just over 20 minutes."

The Ellis ED also continues to implement electronic health records, which provide greater efficiencies, enhanced communication among caregivers, and ultimately provide further quality and patient safety improvements.

As the location of all inpatient care, including inpatient mental health services, Ellis Hospital operates a Mental Health Crisis Unit in conjunction with its ED. This unit was opened in 2007 in response to a growing number of mental health patients in the community in need of care, most of whom seek care through the emergency department. The unit is staffed with registered nurses, mental health technicians, psychiatric crisis workers, psychiatrists and security officers, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to care for mental health patients in crisis. Patients receive a medical screening in the Emergency Department before entering the new unit.

A collaborative effort between Ellis Hospital and local EMS crews has resulted in faster "door-to-balloon" times. On average it takes only 54 minutes for a heart attack patient to get from the emergency room to the catheterization lab where a balloon is inflated in his/her artery to restore blood flow. This beats the national benchmark by 36 minutes. The improved door-to-balloon times are possible now that EMS crews have LifePac 12 units in their ambulances enabling them to electronically transmit EKG data from suspected heart attack patients directly to the hospital's ED and a cardiologist's cell phone. The technology places critical cardiac information in the hands of physicians faster, for diagnosis, while Ellis mobilizes the necessary staff and resources - even before the patient arrives at the hospital. This amounts to saved time, saved heart muscle and saved lives.