What To Expect? The CUH Emergency Medicine Pathway
Check In
It is helpful to bring a GP letter, list of your regular medications, any letters/correspondence that relates to your medical conditions, your health insurance or medical card details and a contact number for the person designated to be your liaison between family and staff.
Triage
Triage is carried out on all patients who attend the Emergency Department, whether they present by ambulance, by GP referral, or self-referral so that the department’s resources can be utilised to treat the sickest patients first.
Assessment
You will be assessed by an Emergency Doctor or Advanced Nurse Practitioner, whose role is to treat patients' pain and distress, and to identify and diagnose life threatening illness. Following a thorough assessment, further diagnostic workup, such as blood test and X-rays, may be indicated.
Treatment
70% of patients will be discharged following treatment in the Emergency Department, with follow-up plans decided between the patient and treating clinician. The remaining 30% of patients are referred for ongoing and specialist care to the in-house specialty teams.
Our Department
Emergency Medicine
Geriatric Emergency Medicine
Paediatric Emergency Medicine
Pre Hospital Emergency Medicine Emergency Medicine
The core function of an Emergency Department (ED) is to provide access for people who develop a sudden apparently serious change in their health to appropriately trained staff, space and equipment. Typical presentations include possible heart attack, stroke, severe breathlessness, collapse and major trauma. These potentially life, organ or limb-threatening situations require simultaneous assessment and resuscitation of the patient, ensuring that appropriate time-critical treatment is administered, while judiciously holding off on unnecessary treatments if they are not immediately required.
Emergency Medicine has often been described, appropriately, as the “safety net” of the healthcare system. This means we “catch you when you fall” from your usual healthcare options, in the case of a possible emergency, with the aim of diagnosing and treating the emergency, to allow you to return to your usual healthcare providers. Read More >>
Geriatric Emergency Medicine
Geriatric Emergency Multidisciplinary Service (GEMS) based in the Emergency Department is made up of healthcare professionals from different clinical disciplines who all have expertise in looking after older adults.
The aim of GEMS is to provide early Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment for older adults coming to our emergency department who are living with or at risk of frailty. Comprehensive geriatric assessment means that we look at the person as a whole rather than only focusing on the reason why you have come to hospital.
Ultimately the goal is to deliver the right care in the right place at the right time to ensure older adults continue to be healthy, happy and independent throughout their lives. Read More >>
Paediatric Emergency Medicine
Each and every child is unique and deserves to be loved and cared for in an age appropriate way. They have a spectrum of needs and they respond differently to their surroundings when compared to adults – the nurses and doctors working in this area of the emergency department require a special skill set.
We need to be able to respond immediately to give life saving treatment to a critically ill or injured child, while at the same time be able to put a child who simply needs some stitches at ease or correctly diagnose that bothersome rash that just won’t go away all the while making sure that we bring their parents with us on this often worry- filled journey.
Our mission is to provide world-class, child-centred and family- focused emergency care in an appropriately thoughtfully designed audiovisually separated space. Read More >>
Pre Hospital Emergency Medicine
Cork University Hospital Emergency Department is not just a place or
a building; it is a service that has evolved with time to serve the community we all live in.We are continuously developing novel ways of delivering care across the spectrum of emergency presentations, from minor emergency presentations to resuscitations, within the walls of the hospital and far beyond.
For many years, our Pre-hospital Emergency Medicine (PHEM) doctors have been working to provide life-saving resuscitation procedures in our community. They work with our colleagues in the National Ambulance Service on a voluntary basis, tasked by the National Emergency Operation Centre in response to 999/112 calls. Read More >>
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