Department Discovery - April: CCMH Emergency Care Department

This month's Department Discovery shines the light on Campbell County Health's Emergency Care Department (ED)—or, what many of you refer to as the Emergency Room (ER).

There are many ideas of what an ER does, thanks to popular television shows such as ER and Grey's Anatomy. So, here is a quick breakdown of what the CCMH ED in Gillette, Wyoming provides:

• 24/7 services for patients of all ages
• immediate treatment of any medical, surgical or psychiatric emergency
• initiates life-saving procedures in all types of emergency situations
• and provides emergency care for chronic conditions

Marie Edwards, the EDs interim manager, reports that the ED is staffed 24-hours a day, seven days a week by nine physicians (all of which are board certified in emergency medicine) and a compassionate medical staff who also specialize in emergency medicine—there are 33 nurses (RNs), eight patient care technicians and five secretaries who help this department run smoothly (a fraction of the department is pictured).

Services like x-ray and laboratory, surgical teams and specialists are all nearby and available at the moment you need them. Patients are treated in private exam rooms that are supported by innovative technology (like the scribe system) and caring staff. If hospitalization is needed, our 90-bed acute care hospital is here for you. CCMH is designated as an Area Trauma Hospital by the state of Wyoming Department of Public Health Emergency Services. The Trauma Nurse Coordinator and Trauma Medical Director/ED Director lead a multidisciplinary team to ensure appropriate provision of trauma care.

As you can imagine, this department is busy, and the ED knows that efficiency is a must. Thanks to a new committee, the department is running better every day. "The ED lean committee is a group of nurses, a physician, patient care techs and secretaries that have standardized the rooms and centralized the daily stocking items. This process is constantly being reviewed, and changes are made accordingly," says Marie. "We are proud of the work done so far and continue to strive to improve the efficiency of the department."

Note: you can read more about this team in the Health Connect Blog post, Standardization brings success to ED.

Marie also mentioned that the nursing staff has a specialized and dedicated group of nurses that provide a valuable service to our community: the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE). This group of six nurses is specially trained in obtaining physical evidence for law enforcement in assault, abuse or neglect cases in Campbell County. This expertise requires extensive and ongoing class time and hands-on education. The SANE nurses include:

• Nancy Stolpe
• Sarah Holberg
• Raelyn Rozier
• Tara Trottier
• Anna Laakso
• Kyla Kimball (who work in the ICU)

"Their dedication to the program involves long hours of detailed evidence collection and proper chain of evidence securement. The work of the SANE nurse fosters a mutually respectful working relationship with local and state law enforcement," says Marie.

Marie mentioned that in the event that a SANE-trained nurse isn't available, all of the ED's nurses are able to do evidence collection.

A big round of applause to the Emergency Department staff! Thank you for all that you do for keeping our community healthy. You can learn more about the ED at www.cchwyo.org/ER.

Remember: The Emergency Department is not a replacement for a primary care provider. Please visit the Find a Provider section for physician information. And, if you ever wonder when you should visit the Emergency Department or a Walk-In Clinic, please check out www.cchwyo.org/EDvsWIC.