New CU Hospital Emergency Department Focuses On Patient Care

AURORA, Colo. (CBS4) - There's a new way to treat patients in the emergency room at the new University of Colorado Hospital.

The department has been transformed to focus on patient care and the entire process from admitting to discharge has been revamped.

"We've looked at every single process that a patient experiences when they come for emergency care and we've redesigned every single thing around that patient," said Dr. Richard Zane, Department of Emergency Medicine Chairman.

"We feel that having a doctor out there will help with the process," Emergency Department Manager April Koehler said. "We can make sure all of the patient's questions are answered before the (doctor) writes up the discharge orders; streamlining the pharmacy process; we now have a 24-hour retail pharmacy in our waiting room, so when patients are discharged they can fill their prescriptions right away."

The 56,000 square foot emergency department is on the first floor of the new University Hospital inpatient tower. That's triple the size of the hospital's old emergency room. It has state-of-the-art technology to provide the best level of care to patients in the emergency department.

"We now have a CT scanner in our emergency department, we have two ultrasounds in our emergency department," Koehler said.

They've also moved the lab for testing to cut down on waiting time.

"We've put point-of-care testing in the emergency department, which means when you get a blood test, that blood test is analyzed here and we decrease that turnaround time from 45 minutes to less than 8 minutes for a blood test," Zane said.

The new $600 million tower will eventually have 12 stories.