What do we do?
“ "UZ Brussel’s Emergency Department is a service provider which guarantees high-quality urgent care for adult patients and children".
Mission statement Emergency Department May 2007
The Emergency Department at UZ Brussel is a multidisciplinary service which has grown to become one of the country’s largest emergency units since the hospital’s launch in 1977. Each year, some 60,000 patients (including ¼ children) suffering from various conditions are examined and treated. The department collaborates closely with all the hospital’s medical departments and centres of excellence, referring physicians and specialists from other hospitals.
In addition, the Emergency Department at UZ Brussel can call on 37 medical specialties, a 24/7 functioning operations ward and six departments for intensive medicine. When caring for sick children, the Emergency Department works closely with all the services of the Children’s Hospital, in particular the Departments for Intensive Paediatric Care and Neonatology.
All patients who register at the Emergency Department are sorted by a team comprising a certified Emergency Physician and a nurse with a specific emergency care qualification. Following a brief review of patients’ antecedents and an examination, the triage team will accord patients an emergency colour and refer them to an examination ward according to their appreciation of the degree of urgency. The purpose of such triage is to diminish the processing times, to channel the patient flows and to keep the patients and their companions informed of waiting times.
Triage has a reassuring or calming effect on patients as due attention is given from the first contact to pain, fear, the immediate and the further course of the treatment, prognosis and disease management.
The medical team comprises 15 emergency physicians from across various disciplines (Internal Medicine, Surgery, Paediatrics, Anaesthesiology, Psychiatry). This multidisciplinary team stands for efficient and quality patient care. Continuous cover is assured at nights and weekends by 15 sleep-in physicians representing different medical specialties. Doctors from across all medical specialties can also be called upon daily.
The nursing team comprises 50 FTE nurses. The reception and data administration staff counts 15 FTE.
To ensure the efficient treatment of Emergency Ward patients, physicians, nurses and reception and data administration staff receive regular training and tuition. Such competence training not only covers medical-technical care, but our training approach also focuses on the human aspects of emergency patients. All staff receives training on how to deal with crisis situations, dealing with aggression and the accurate channelling of information about care, treatment and aftercare. This training lies at the basis of a Behavioural Code for all team members of the Emergency Department.
Given the great importance of care during any crisis situations and life-threatening conditions, the team also has 24/7 access to a number of colleagues who have benefited from a professional course in Caring for Victims and who are on call and motivated to care for and counsel patients and their families during the, sometimes extremely frightening moments during their stay in the Emergency Department.
Being treated in an Emergency Ward is never pleasant. We guarantee that our full team will do all in its power to provide rapid and competent support!