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NURSE PRACTITIONER ADDED TO MDH EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT
McDonough District Hospital has added an advanced practice nurse (APN) to improve the time frame for patients receiving treatment in the Emergency Department.
Previously the MDH Emergency Department established a working arrangement with Advanced Emergency Specialists (AES), LTD., a group of 28 emergency medicine physicians who staff the emergency departments at both Cottage Hospital in Galesburg and Pekin Hospital in Pekin. The AES group recently added Jenny Runyon, APN, certified as a Clinical Nurse Specialist, to meet MDH Emergency Department coverage needs from 11 am to 9 pm Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.
“We continue to look at ways to improve the flow of patients through the emergency department and deliver services in an improved time frame,” said Chris Dace, director of emergency services at MDH. “We strive to fulfill the department’s primary role of treating life- and/or limb-threatening illnesses and injuries but also have an obligation to serve a secondary role of providing care to patients for the non-emergent conditions when a patient needs or desires immediate physician attention."
An advanced practice nurse (APN) can order diagnostic procedures, intake medical history from a physician perspective and order prescriptive medicines. At MDH the APN works with the emergency room physician to care for patients more efficiently and help provide treatment in a shorter time frame in most situations.
Our goal is to establish consistent physician coverage in the Emergency Room with an established group of qualified physician providers from the area. MDH maintains three full time emergency department physicians, Drs. George Roodhouse, Robert McEntyre and Mario Raso. Five physicians from AES provide most of the coverage at MDH. These physicians include James Klein; James Szudera; Joseph Krug, Ravi Masih, and Raj Shrivastav. According to Dace, the MDH emergency department has nearly eliminated the need to supplement MDH and AES physicians with locum physicians. Furthermore, the addition of a nurse practitioner during the historically highest patient service times allows the emergency department to serve the growing number of people seeking care.
The most recent data reports that national average waiting time at emergency departments is three and one half hours, according to Dace. When more intensive cases demanding immediate attention arrive, patients seeking assistance for less severe illnesses or injuries may wait longer while those with life threatening injuries are treated. Our hope is that the Advanced Practice Nurse will significantly reduce the waiting time for patients seeking assistance for less severe cases.
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