Emergency Department Renovation Started

Emergency Care During Renovation

We are renovating Carteret Health Care’s emergency department to better serve you in your greatest time of need. This $1.9 million project is an investment in our community and will create a newly designed Emergency Department to improve the care, flow and services for you and your family. Upon completion in Spring 2017, the benefits of the emergency services project will include:

• Improved patient privacy with all private treatment rooms
• Adding 10 patient areas
• Enhanced waiting area
• Therapeutic, private behavioral health care area
• Increased operating efficiency to improve patient flow and care
• Adding 3,000 square feet for a total footprint of 19,000 square feet emergency dept

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you as we improve to better meet your health care needs. Throughout the course of the renovations, the doors of our Emergency Department will remain open at all times. Hospital leadership and staff planned extensively so that all emergency beds will be open during all three phases of renovation. Patients should continue to use the 35th Street Entrance to access our life saving emergency services or call 911.

Patients with non-emergent needs, can check-in online, wait at home and hold their place in line until the projected treatment time. Visit www.CarteretER.com for a projected time for your minor treatment needs.

What to Expect During an Emergency Department Visit:

We do our best to see you promptly, but there are circumstances that may affect your waiting times such as an influx of life threatening and more serious injuries that require lifesaving services immediately.

Patients who visit the emergency department will be initially evaluated through our triage system. This means that each patient is evaluated by a specialty trained nurse to determine the level of medical emergency. The process allows us to know which patients have the most serious needs and begin their treatment first. You will be asked some questions about how you are feeling and we may take your vital signs such as blood pressure, pulse rate, breathing rate, and temperature. Your vital signs and a number of other factors will determine how quickly you need to be seen.

Sometimes, we begin your care to diagnose and treat you before you have been assigned a bed. This may include performing lab tests, x-rays or other diagnostic tests. Though you maybe in the waiting area during this time, we hope this will reduce the time you spend in the back treatment area.

For your convenience, our waiting room is equipped with free Wi-Fi and television.

Wait Times

During some of our busier times, it can take longer to be fully triaged. If you have not been triaged by a nurse in 30 minutes, please let our check-in staff know.

Your symptoms and health are important to us. If while in the waiting room your condition worsens please see the triage nurse immediately. Feel free to check with our staff about your questions or your wait. We work hard to reduce waiting times and we want you to be pleased with our service.

Specialized testing that is ordered by your emergency caregivers can take several hours to be fully evaluated. Blood analysis, medical treatment and imaging studies – such as x-rays and CT scans – all take time.