ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND FACILITIES

The Department of Emergency Medicine has been an independent academic unit within the College of Medicine since 1984. It is responsible for the medical direction of the University Hospital Center for Emergency Care (CEC) and the Emergency Medicine Residency Program. Most of the Emergency Medicine training occurs within the University Hospital. The Medical Center includes the Colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and sponsors residency training in 42 specialties. The faculty of the College of Medicine has complete responsibility for all professional services in the University Hospital Center for Emergency Care.

University Hospital, Inc. is a 695-bed facility completed in 1969. It is designated a Level I Trauma Center by the American College of Surgeons. The Emergency Department sees over 91,000 adult patients annually. A satellite laboratory, pharmacy, x-ray facility, CT scanner and pre-hospital care base station are located in the Emergency Department, as is the dispatch center for University Air Care, a helicopter transport system. The CEC also has an Urgent Care Center staffed by Emergency Medicine faculty, residents, physician assistants and paramedics. Separate 24 hour per day Emergency Psychiatry and Social Service teams are also present in the Emergency Department.

The Medical Center includes several teaching and community facilities in addition to University Hospital. Residents rotate to Children's Hospital Medical Center, Veteran's Administration Hospital, Jewish Hospital and West Chester Medical Center.

Clinical Sites:

One of US News and World Reports "Top 100 Hospitals" 695 bed facility 91,000 visits to the ED annually Only level-1 trauma center in the area Serves both tertiary care patients and serves as the local county hospital Double and triple attending coverage, 24 hours a day Rapid Diagnostic and Treatment Center for observational medicine Home of the Cincinnati Stroke team-national leaders in the treatment of acute stroke Home of University Air Care & Mobile Care (www.aircareandmobilecare.com) PES-Psychiatric Emergency Services Excellent social services and ancillary staff 24 hours a day

Children’s Hospital is one of the top ten children’s hospitals in the country 90,000 visits to the ED annually Pediatric level one trauma center Staffed 24 hours a day by trained pediatric emergency physicians International reputation for patient care, education and outreach

Serving Cincinnati’s northern suburbs, 20 miles from the University 30,000+ ED visits annually 28 private treatment and exam rooms

Serving Cincinnati’s northern suburbs, 10 miles from the University Includes 2 pods, a fast track area and resuscitation bays Active in research

Rapid Diagnostic Treatment Center (RDTC)

Observation medicine is playing an increasingly important role under health care reform. Future diagnostic patient workups and low to moderate level treatment are unlikely to be performed in traditional inpatients units. This concept is being embraced by Emergency Medicine to further establish our expanding role under managed care. Such emergency department care has found to be more aggressive, timely, and cost effective than the older "23 hour" inpatient admission. It is estimated that there will be well over 1,000 observation or rapid diagnosis and treatment centers in emergency departments across the country by next year.

The RDTC at University Hospital is a ten-bed unit designed to meet diagnostic, therapeutic and disposition needs of an ED patient subset. The assigned RDTC faculty physician has overall responsibility for patients in the Center. Over 1200 patients were evaluated in the RDTC in 1999.

We believe experience with the RDTC concept is vital to emergency medicine resident education. We are primarily committed to providing an experience that will allow residents to effectively manage ED observation patients. We consider this clinical expertise a mandatory and important component of emergency medicine residency training.

Historically, our residents have been looked to for leadership in the management of cutting-edge protocols. We secondarily desire to provide, on an elective basis, education to allow future directorship of these emerging units.

The primary goals and objectives of all residents include:

• Provide a clinical experience with the RDTC which allow residents to become expert in ED-based observation medicine
• Understand the patient selection process for optimum use of RDTC
• Become adept at the diagnostic and therapeutic management of RDTC patients
• Understand the interface between, and roles of, the physician and ancillary staff in regards of RDTC management
• Become comfortable with final disposition decisions

The Resident Education Laboratory

The department has an ongoing commitment to resident education. One example of this commitment is a dedicated Residency Education Laboratory equipped with multiple top of the line computer stations. The computer stations are connected to the department's network and the Internet via high speed T1 gigabit lines on systems running Windows 7 Enterprise with Intel Core i7 processors. A wide variety of software packages are maintained by the department including, but not limited to, Office 2010 Professional, Adobe Acrobat Professional, Peer VII, and a whole host of productivity and entertainment applications. Access to a document scanner, color laserjet printers, and loaner laptops is also available.