Study visit to A&E

We had a study visit to the A&E (accident and emergency) department of Central Finland's central hospital here in Jyväskylä last Wednesday. We were going to see what happens to the patients when they arrive in the hospital. Were also going to see what happens to the patients who come to the hospital by ambulance since last week we practiced paramedics work on the field.
When we arrived into the A&E we were told about the triage nurse's job since everyone is going to meet him/her at first. The triage nurse is the one who makes the decicion what kind of care the patient will need. There are five different letters as a classifications for urgency of a patient. The most urgent patients will get classification A which means that the patient's care has to be started immediately. The next urgent patients get the B classification and their treatment has to be started within 15 to 30 minutes. Patients with classification A or B are usually the ones who come by ambulance and they are first treated in the so called shock room. In the shock room there are all the monitors needed and also there is easy access to the x-ray and CT. Patients who recieve the classification C will need care within two hours and patients with classification D will need care within three hours. Usually patients with classification C or D are the ones who come from home by themselves or the ones who come from health centre with a referral. These C and D patients go in the hospital either to the basic health care side or to the specialized health care side. There can also be patients with the classification of E which means that they won't need any acute care which means that they will recieve some care instructions or they are referred to the health centre to the doctor's or nurse's appointment. There are at least two triage nurses working all the time. The other one is for patients who come by ambulance and the other one is for patients who come to the hopital by themselves with a referral or not.
The A&E department of Central Finland's central hospital is open 24/7 and it is the only A&E department in the Central Finland and that is why there are patients coming quite far away aswell. The A&E department also has the basic health care's duty during weekdays from 4pm till 8am, during weekends from Friday 4pm till Monday 8am, and during the holidays. During those times there will be doctor's and nurse's appointment available for the patients with an E classification.
The visit was nice and even though I was a pretty familiar with the A&E I got lots of new information. It was also nice to see the shock room because you are not able to see that unless you are working at the A&E or you work as a paramedic. The visit was a bit shorter than we expected and it would have been nice to see the accident and emergency and infection ward (päivystys ja infektio osasto) but maybe some other time.