It’s not always easy to know if a medical problem needs emergency care. In some situations, emergency medical treatment is a must. Other conditions are best dealt with by your family doctor or at a local health clinic.   How do you decide?

Understanding how an Emergency Room works may help you decide if you need to go there. When you arrive, a nurse will speak with you and decide the urgency and level of care you need: 

1. Emergency
Heart attack, major trauma, severe head injury, amputation, severe difficulty breathing (due to an allergic reaction or other cause), anytime a patient is unconscious, severe bleeding

2. Urgent
Head injury but still awake, deep cut, foreign body in the eyes or ears, high fever in an infant or toddler, chest pain (not related to a known heart problem), signs of serious infection

3. Less Urgent
Possible fracture/sprain, back pain, skin/wound infection, headaches (migraines)

4. Not Urgent
Colds, minor cuts, bites, sore throat, sinus problems

If you think it’s an emergency or urgent, don’t hesitate!

Come in 24 hours a day - 7 days a week - 365 days a year.
 

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It would be helpful if you could bring the following information with you:

• Your medical history.
• The names and dosage of all medications you routinely take.
• The name and telephone number of your primary physician.

For minors: It is important that patients who are minors have a medical consent form, signed by their parent or legal guardian, if that person is not with them.




 

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People wait in emergency departments for many reasons.  Some of these include:

• Waiting while the sickest patients are seen first.   
• Overcrowding due to epidemics such as the flu. Also, unlike a doctor’s office where appointments are scheduled, many emergency patients may arrive at once.   
• Waiting of X-Ray and Laboratory results. (Some test results take longer than others.)   
• Waiting of consultations for specialist physicians.
  
  
   

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The very best care takes time. A triage nurse will grade your condition by severity.  Patients with life-threatening conditions such as stroke and heart attack are seen first. Your total stay may depend on your symptoms, illness and whether you have to be admitted to the hospital. Also, if an emergency room physician consults with a specialist or you have special tests and X-rays taken, your stay may be longer.

 

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You will receive one bill from the hospital and a separate bill from the Emergency Department physician who provided your care. You will receive additional separate bills from any physicians who performed specialty services, such as x- ray interpretation, EKG (electrocardiogram), pathology tissue examination, and so forth. For more billing questions and answers plus contact phone numbers visit this BILLING page.

Our Emergency Department doctors and nurses have highly specialized training and credentials to treat patients for diagnosis and treatment of acute illnesses and injuries that require immediate medical attention.

EMERGENCY MEDICINE
 
Emergency medicine is a branch of medicine that is practiced in a top hospital emergency departments, in the field by emergency medical service operatives, such as paramedics, and other locations where initial medical treatment of illness takes place. Just as clinicians operate by immediacy rules under large emergency systems, emergency physicians base their practice on a triage system.


  Emergency Medicine encompasses a large amount of general medicine but involves virtually all fields of medicine including the surgical sub-specialties. Emergency physicians are tasked with seeing a large number of patients, treating their illnesses and arranging for disposition - either admitting them to the hospital or releasing them to return home after treatment is complete. The emergency physician requires a broad field of knowledge and advanced procedural skills often including surgical procedures, trauma resuscitation, advanced cardiac life support and advanced airway management. Emergency physicians ideally have the skills of many specialists - the ability to manage a difficult airway (anesthesia), suture a complex laceration (plastic surgery), reduce (set) a fractured bone or dislocated joint (orthopedic surgery), treat a heart attack (internist), work-up a pregnant patient with vaginal bleeding (Obstetrics and Gynecology), and stop a bad nosebleed (ENT).  

"Emergency medicine is a medical specialty -- a field of practice based on the knowledge and skills required for the prevention, diagnosis and management of acute and urgent aspects of illness and injury affecting patients of all age groups with a full spectrum of undifferentiated physical and behavioral disorders. It further encompasses an understanding of the development of pre-hospital and in-hospital emergency medical systems and the skills necessary for this development."

International Federation for Emergency Medicine



 

 

Consent Form For Minors Brochure
 

Ann M. Cutolo of the Cutchogue Homemakers presents Mary Ellen Stevens, RN with handmade teddy bears to console pediatric patients in need of emergency care.

The Emergency Department at Eastern Long Island Hospital has a dedicated pediatric/obstetric room for all pediatric emergencies.   

Fully equipped with:

• Pediatric Crash Cart
• Infant and child sized monitoring equipment
• Pediatric Ear thermometers
• Pediatric Wheelchairs
• Blanket Warmer
• Electronic Link to Poison Control 
   

Infants and children with the following conditions
are frequently treated at ELIH:
 

• Respiratory Distress
• Fevers 
• Rashes/Allergic Reactions
• Toxic Ingestions/Overdoses 
• Broken bones, sprains, strains
• Traumatic injuries, burns, lacerations
• Gastrointestinal Distress  
• Emergency Surgery for Orthopaedics
• General Surgery (i.e. Appendicitis)
• Plastic Surgery

KINDNESS IS ALWAYS IN SEASON

Emergency Department Coordinator, Jennie Forrestal, RN demonstrates the nuances of the pediatric code cart that The Inn at the Blue helped to underwrite.

Equipped with lifesaving instruments, the code cart is essential for pediatric emergencies to quickly determine weight-based medication doses and select infant and child-sized resuscitation equipment.













Lawrence R. Schiff MD, FACEP
Chairman, Emergency Medicine
Diplomate, American Board of Emergency Medicine
Diplomate, American Board of Internal Medicine
Pediatric Advanced Life Support 

 

 

Those suffering from acute physical or mental health emergencies, who are unstable, or have life-threatening illnesses or injuries are immediately placed in the appropriate treatment area where a multi-disciplinary team utilizing state-of-the-art equipment conduct emergency evaluations and perform the necessary resuscitation, stabilization treatment and/or post trauma or post resuscitation critical care. All of our Emergency Physicians and Registered Nurses are certified in:

• Basic Life Support (BLS)
• Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS)
• Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS)

EXPANDED Emergency Department, dedicated Friday, December 10, 2004. 


Thanks to the support of the community combined with significant corporate contributions, Emergency Medicine at ELIH sets a new standard of Emergency Care in our community. The recently redone Emergency Department was rebuilt to streamline patient comfort and accessibility on all levels.

 
 

 

It is a now a spacious 4,512 square feet, nine-bed, state-of-the-art facility. Incorporated into the new design is a dedicated trauma and chest pain center, decontamination chamber and isolation suite, pediatric/obstetric room and patient nourishment center, in addition to dedicated triage, waiting, reception and outpatient service areas for diagnostic testing