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24-Hour Emergency Room
If you are experiencing a medical emergency, please call 911 immediately.
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In the event of a medical emergency, count on Physicians Regional to be there for you every minute of every day. Both the Collier Boulevard and Pine Ridge hospital campuses offer 24-hour emergency room services with comfortable surroundings, specially trained emergency medicine physicians, and caring and compassionate staff members. Both emergency rooms are also backed by the full resources of two state-of-the-art hospitals offering the latest medical technology and diagnostic capabilities for adults and children.
How Do I Find the Emergency Department?
In an emergency, the last thing you want to worry about is where the ER is located. That’s why Physicians Regional Healthcare System has painted a Blue Path on the pavement to lead you directly to the Emergency Department from the street entrances at both the Collier Boulevard and Pine Ridge hospital campuses. Just follow the Blue Path to receive 24-hour emergency services. “Our Emergency Department care has over a 95 percent patient satisfaction rate, and now we’ve made it even easier for patients to access us,” says Jeffrey Panozzo, D.O., medical director of the Emergency Department at Physicians Regional-Pine Ridge.
All patients who visit an emergency room are entitled to a medical screening examination by a health care professional. The medical screening examination determines the need for emergency care. Patients with serious complaints will be treated in the emergency room regardless of their ability to pay. However, if it is determined that a patient’s case in not emergent, he or she will be counseled about other options like urgent care facilities, clinics or family practitioners, and be encouraged to seek them out for care. Examples of such non-emergent cases would include: minor infections, minor injuries, rash, earaches, dental pain and prescription refills.
The goal of this program is to alleviate the lengthy wait time that may accompany an emergency room visit; it also saves the patient the significant costs associated with an emergency room visit.
"If a non-emergent patient decides to stay and be treated at our emergency room after we’ve presented all the options, we are pleased to provide these services in the same efficient, professional manner as the emergency services we provide," says Geoffrey D. Moebius, CEO of Physicians Regional Healthcare System. These patients will be charged an initial fee that will depend on the particular case. If a patient opts to receive treatment through alternative medical resources, he or she will only be charged for the medical screening examination.
Physicians Regional is licensed to perform Level I Adult Cardiovascular Services, which include both emergent and non-emergent percutaneous coronary interventional (PCI) procedures. The Emergency Department participates in the county-wide Code Save A Heart program. The goal of the program is to diagnose and open a blocked vessel within 90 minutes from arrival at the Emergency Room. The quicker the clot is removed and the vessel is opened, the minimal amount of damage to the cardiac muscle.
- SAFETY AND SPEED ARE IMPORTANT... The emergency room physicians and staff are ready and waiting when the patient arrives. The emergency room does an EKG, chest X-ray, blood work, starts an IV and any necessary medications. The goal is to get the patient to the catheterization lab within 30 minutes. An interventional cardiologist is either here or on call 24/7. He is required to arrive at the catheterization lab within 30 minutes. The procedure begins with cardiac catheterization where a needle is inserted through the groin with dye. If a clot is found, either an angioplasty (balloon) will be used to open up the vessel or a stent (coil) will be inserted.
- QUALITY OF CARE… All emergency room physicians at Physicians Regional Medical Center-Pine Ridge are board-certified in emergency medicine. The experience and expertise of the hospital’s emergency room staff is essential to the success of the Code Save A Heart program.
