Our Emergency Care Process

As part of our goal to provide the best possible care for our patients, we have developed a patient- and family-centered emergency medicine model to deliver high-quality, personalized, and efficient care. Below is an overview of our new process:

Assignment to Provider Team

Walk-in patients proceed to a check-in desk, where they are greeted by a registered nurse and asked a short series of key questions. Patients are then assigned to a provider team and brought directly into the patient care area instead of back to a waiting area. With the BWH emergency care model, the focus is on getting patients directly to care, and as long as the ED has capacity to accept new patients, a “direct-to-provider” model is employed. Our ability to achieve this goal has been enhanced by converting waiting room space into patient care space.

Family or other support persons are encouraged to accompany the patient throughout the emergency care process to provide comfort and to help answer questions.

Team-based Care

From the time a patient is assigned to a bed to the time they leave our ED, patients are be cared for by a team of clinicians – nurses, physicians, a physician assistant, and a resident – working in collaboration. The collaborative focus of our team-based model helps ensure that providers and staff are thoroughly familiar with the patient’s condition at every step of care, enhancing efficiency, communication, safety, and patient satisfaction.