The Workings of the New Emergency Department

As most of you know we recently transitioned to our new McCormick Foundation Center for Advanced Emergency Response.  It is an outstanding facility which nearly doubles our previous capacity and offers the latest and greatest in terms of patient-centered care.  This post is to help orient you to your upcoming rotation in the Emergency Department.

As you can see from the map below the department is divided into three pods:

• Pod A - will serve primarily as a triage and rapid treatment area.  The concept is that patients seen in this area can be quickly evaluated and either discharged or moved onto Pod B for further treatment.  This pod includes dedicated ENT and Ob/Gyne rooms.
• Pod B - this is the primary area in which you will be working.   Patient's anticipated to require a work-up will be triaged to this pod.  It includes seven critical care rooms on the north side of the pod.  It also includes three dedicated psychiatric rooms.  The south side of this pod includes four observation rooms for patients placed to ED observation (e.g. very low risk chest pain, cellulitis, dehydration, etc.)
• Pod C - during the day this pod will be occupied by employee health.  This pod will serve as an overflow for patients from Pod B as well.  While working shifts in Pod B you will also be responsible for seeing patients in this pod.

Note, pediatric patients will be placed in any available room although we anticipate many will end up being seen in Pod A.  If you are a Pediatric resident or Cook County Resident doing a pediatric shift you will have to keep an eye on the track board to see where pediatric patients are roomed and staff them with the appropriate attending.

The Attending schedule will be divided by pod as well - there will be a pod A attending and a pod B/C attending(s).  You will staff the patients you see with whichever attending is in charge of the pod that patient is in.  You can chart on any available computer.

A couple of additional notes:

• You can find the 'end of shift' evaluation forms in the cabinet adjacent to the EMS radios (located adjacent to room 4 in north side of pod A by the ambulance bay entrance into the ED)- the yellow sheets are for pediatric residents, the white sheets are for adult EM residents. 
• Residents will not have cisco portable phones and will use the land lines available throughout the ED for discussions with consulting or admitting residents. 

Finally there are dedicated Resident lockers in the locker room adjacent to the radiology department by the administrative offices in the southeast corner of the department.  These will be shared lockers so please refrain from leaving anything valuable.  Also it is a co-ed locker room with dedicated male and female bathrooms so please use the bathrooms for changing, etc.  There will be no storage of personal items elsewhere in the department so please make use of the locker rooms.  Also please remember there are no beverages or food allowed in the clinical areas of the department - this will be strictly enforced.  The locker numbers and combinations are below:

Resident 1 -  01166 – combo 25-7-16

Resident 2 -  01164 – combo 21-47-12

Resident 3 -  01152 – combo 25-13-26

Emergency Department Layout