What happens when a patient first arrives at the emergency room?
“The first thing that happens when a patient enters the hospital ER is triage,” says Lloyd J. Feigenbaum, M.D., director of the Emergency Department at Springfield Hospital. “A nurse evaluates the patient based on the severity of injuries or symptoms, and anyone with significant complaints should be brought straight back to a treatment area. More minor complaints may be given first aid-type treatment. Patients may be taken out of order depending on their problem.” Feigenbaum adds that a nurse may begin certain types of treatment and testing prior to a physician seeing a patient because of preemptive guidelines that have been decided beforehand. “An X-ray may be ordered, for example, if a person has injured an extremity, prior to being seen by a physician,” Feigenbaum says. “This enables the physician to have the X-ray when the patient is seen and thus cut the length of stay significantly.” What order are patients seen in? “Patients are treated based on time of arrival and severity,” sa
