How do emergency departments that are full have room for patients brought in by ambulance?

Question

I’ve always wondered how emergency rooms that are “full” take on patients brought in via ambulance/flightmed

In: Other

Answer 1

The waiting room might be full not because there are no beds available, but because there isn’t enough staff to see everyone. In a typical metropolitan there are multiple hospitals. And while they all might have all the medical equipment necessary some hospitals specialize in certain types of critical issues

So one hospital might have a larger trans center to deal with the industrial and auto accidents, another might have a better cardio center. The paramedics know this and will be in radio communication to go to the better one either based on proximity or quality of facility.

So the hospital A might have the trama operating room available even though the waiting room is full. The person waiting outside because of a twisted ankle will get bumped to a lower priority because someone from a bad car crash is coming in via ambulance.

In medical parlance it’s called triage, treat based on most serious first or most likely to survive.