Em. Med. Annual Report 2011 - Hennepin County Medical Center

Performance, Meaningful Use, Patient and Family Centered Care, Core Measures, and Press Ganey
among many others have become standard medical lexicon.
Our dedicated clinical and support staff has made it easy for us to keep up with the pace of change. In
2010 the ED cared for over 100,000 patients with over 3000 critical care cases. Both time in the
department and time to admission decreased compared to previous years. We have streamlined triage
with the implementation of immediate placement of patients into open Emergency Department and
Express Care beds with excellent responses from patients and staff.
Partnership with our referring hospitals has been a major focus of the HCMC Emergency Department
since its inception. In 2010 we successfully grew our trauma referrals statewide, committed to and
succeeded in achieving both our Adult and Pediatric Level 1 Trauma Center certifications with the
American College of Surgeons and continued to provide some of the fastest times from symptom onset to
percutaneous coronary interventions and TIMI III flow in the nation. We have worked with our neurological
and radiological colleagues to build one of the best acute stroke care centers in the Midwest.
The department has excelled in research. Newly developed over the past several years is the Research
Associate program, instrumental in facilitating clinical research in our department. It provides an
outstanding medical experience for college students interested in medicine as a career, as well as
medical students interested in emergency medicine as a specialty of choice.
Educational outreach continues to be a cornerstone of the HCMC Emergency Medicine Department. In
2009- 2010, we taught 248 medical students from over 40 schools in their clinical rotations of emergency
medicine. We also taught nursing students, PA students and paramedic students doing clinical rotations.
Over 140 off-service residents did 4-6 week clinical rotations in the ED. In 2010 we provided several
continuing education courses, ranging from paramedic certification classes to eight hour individual
physician procedural teaching laboratories. Under the direction of Dr. Jeff Ho we launched a new
educational venue named the Tactical Emergency Medical Peace Officer or TEMPO © course. Dr. Rob
Reardon continues to teach several ultrasound courses every year to community-based EPs.
This brief listing just scratches the surface of our commitment to life-long medical learning. Heraclitus of
Ephesus (c.535 BC-475 BC) was a Greek philosopher, known for his doctrine of change being central to
the universe. Change is also central to the practice of emergency medicine. We look forward to the
challenges that change in the practice of emergency medicine will inevitably bring. The one thing that has
not changed in these intervening years is our departmental mission. We embrace the triad of state-of-the-art
clinical care, creative and passionate teaching and innovative research. This mission is alive and well in
the HCMC Department of Emergency Medicine. We look forward to another exceptional year in 2011 and
we welcome you to our Activity Report for 2009-2010.
Warm regards,
Dr. Douglas Brunette
Dr. William Heegaard
Department of Emergency Medicine Activities Report | 2009-2010 | 15