Emergency Medicine

Patient Care

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Passionately Serving Patients and Communities

The clinical division of the Department of Emergency Medicine is dedicated to the optimization of patient care on several fronts. The division is responsible for the development and maintenance of best practices regarding medical care, patient flow, and quality assurance and initiatives. The staffing and strategic layouts of the department are extremely important and the division continuously reassesses the dynamic and changing needs of the community in this regard.

Specialty Units

The main Emergency Department is organized into functional units for ease of staffing and flow:

  • Resuscitation is the centerpiece of the department, equipped with 12 bays for resuscitating the most critically ill and injured patients, both adult and pediatric. Each bay is spacious, has operating suite lighting and has all the physical and technological resources and supplies necessary for modern resuscitation immediately available, including column-mounted bedside ultrasound machines in each of the 12 suites.

  • This pod, by itself larger than most entire emergency departments, consists of 26 private rooms, as well as two flexible curtained areas for a total of 36 patient care spaces. These beds, all with central telemetry monitoring, are the most flexible areas of the department, capable of caring for patients of all levels of acuity.

  • This pod is functionally similar to north, except with 14 beds.

  • West is a “fast-track” area, staffed by a mixture of physicians and mid-level providers. Patients seen in this area include eye and ENT problems, as well as non-critical bone and soft tissue injuries and infections. There is a slit-lamp device available, as well as complete splinting / casting and procedural sedation capabilities.

  • Pediatric patients of all levels of acuity are seen in this pod, which has five specially designated resuscitation bays for critically ill and injured children.

  • The Jail ED, a separate but fully functional emergency department, is located on the ground floor of the inpatient tower, and manages all persons in custody requiring medical attention.

  • This area is staffed continuously for the evaluation and treatment of patients who are suffering from acute mental illness that renders them a danger to themselves or others.

  • The UCC, created in 2006, provides urgent, scheduled access for low-acuity patients who present to the LAC+USC Emergency Department. The UCC facilitates rapid outpatient diagnostic options for

  • Staffed by mid-level providers and supervised by Department of Emergency Medicine attendings, patients who do not meet criteria for immediate hospital admission may be observed for up to 24 hours in this unit, and reassessed for admission or discharge. This unit is located on the ground floor of the adjacent clinic tower.