Your Emergency Care Visit
Your health and safety is of the utmost importance to us during your visit to any of our campuses, including our emergency departments.
Below we provide important information to help you understand our triage system, learn more about your care team and what happens after your Emergency Care visit.
How We Support You
At EvergreenHealth, we partner with you to provide excellent care, which is why it's important you do not eat or drink anything until advised by your provider. Some diagnostic tests and treatments require an empty stomach.
Additionally, if you need help once you are in a room, press the red button your call light and a staff member will assist you.
In Case of an Emergency: The Life Saving Triage Process
For more information about the triage process, listen to EvergreenHealth Executive Medical Director Kevin Hanson, MD , explain how the system works and how it saves lives.
Help us keep you, our staff and our environment safe by avoiding harassing language, physical harassment, illegal behaviors or disruptive activity.
How We Care for You
Our Emergency Team's Triage System
The Emergency Care team's triage system is a way of prioritizing patients based on the severity of their condition. This system involves multiple team members determining the severity of the conditions you and our other emergency department patients are experiencing. The system ensures our doctors and specialists deliver care to the most critical patients. These patients are those experiencing life-threatening illnesses and/or injuries.
For patients experiencing illnesses and/or injuries that are not life-threatening, our team determines the order in which you are seen by considering your condition relative to our other patients waiting for care and treating everyone in order of severity.
The triage process is critical to the health and wellness of our Emergency Care patients due to the limited amount of space in our emergency departments, our staffing levels and the number of community members seeking our care.
When there are no immediately available beds, we may ask you to undergo tests such as blood work, x-rays, other imaging exams or an EKG. This allows us to begin assessing and addressing your condition while you wait. Performing these tests while you wait gives us essential baseline information about your health. However, it's important to understand that you will still need to be examined by a doctor or healthcare provider before leaving.
Your Emergency Care Team
Our emergency-trained nurses and technicians will provide excellent care for you during your stay, helping to diagnose your condition and prepare you for treatment. An EvergreenHealth provider, a board-certified physician or physician's assistant will evaluate you and provide for your care.
Your Labs and Diagnostic Imaging
Your provider may order diagnostic imaging and labs to support your care. Once we have all of your test results, your provider will review them with you
Although you may have many tests at the same time, below are the approximate times it takes to get your results for each test:
Lab tests: 1-1.5 hours
X-rays: 1.5 hours
CT scan: 1.5-2 hours
Ultrasound: 2 hours
MRI: 2-3 hours
Plan Of Your Care
Staying With Us
If your care team determines your condition requires you to stay in the hospital, it usually takes an additional 1-1.5 hours for you to be admitted to your room.
Going Home
Prior to going home, your nurse will review discharge paperwork and prescriptions that your provider may have written and answer any of your questions.
