Emergency Services

The Emergency Department (ED) is designed for patients with acute illness or injury. WMH retains specially trained physicians, physician-assistants (PA), nurse-practitioners (NP) and nurses who are taught to handle emergency situations. This department always has a qualified physician on duty all day, every day. The ED hosts 15 patient rooms with telephones and televisions, two specialized rooms designated for cardiac and trauma emergencies, two triage rooms used to evaluate a patients’ level of need, and one internal decontamination room. The Triage System is employed at WMH, which means patients arriving at the ED will be assessed by a triage nurse who will prioritize a patients care needs based on the symptoms they are experiencing and the level of illness. Patients will then be referred to Express Care or to Emergency Care for evaluation and treatment. Emergency Care patients will see the ED physician on duty and the sickest patients are always seen first no matter what order they arrived in. Express Care at the WMH ED utilizes PAs or NPs (supervised by the Emergency Department physician) to evaluate and initiate care. If a patient is given the option of Express Care they may be seen quicker than those requiring Emergency Care and diagnoses by a physician.