When a sudden and serious injury or illness requires a visit to an emergency room (ER), you need a highly skilled team that's always ready to give you top-quality care. That's just what you'll find in Port Angeles at our Olympic Medical Center (OMC) ER, which is open 24 hours a day.
Expert emergency medicine doctors and nurses
One of the best reasons to choose OMC is our excellent ER team. They're highly trained experts who provide top-quality emergency care for our community.
Our staff includes board-certified emergency medicine providers. They are supported by our critical care nurses who have a range of certifications, including certified emergency nurse, neonatal resuscitation program, trauma certified registered nurse and certified acute/critical-care nurse.
Our nurses are often recognized by patients and have earned a DAISY award. See our DAISY recipients.
ER wait times
We've made it our goal to begin treating every patient, even in the waiting room, starting within 15 minutes of arrival. Not every ER can make this commitment.
Here's what to expect when you come to the ER:
- You'll be seen by a provider soon after your arrival. We've increased our staffing levels to ensure that every patient receives a prompt assessment.
- You may receive care and monitoring in a comfortable reclining chair or a wheelchair.
- If you need to be treated in a room with a bed, we will get you there as quickly as possible.
We are always looking for ways to ensure your comfort during your ER stay.
A level 3 trauma center
Our hospital is a Level III trauma center, of which the ER is the leading edge. That means, among other things, that patients with traumatic injuries are promptly seen by an ER physician at a minimum, and a trauma surgeon if indicated. ER nurses have earned Trauma Nursing Core Courses certification.
Should you need highly specialized care for any emergency, our team can quickly stabilize you for transfer to other centers within the trauma system with resources that best meet your needs.
Fast care for strokes
We offer a state-of-the-art TeleStroke program. When patients arrive with stroke symptoms, we connect them and our physicians to experts at the Swedish Neuroscience Institute through secure videoconferencing technology. This technology allows the Swedish stroke team to complete a remote stroke exam and determine if a patient in our ER qualifies for therapies that can reverse a stroke and help prevent disability.
State-of-the-art facilities
Our ER features:
- 20 private and semiprivate exam and treatment rooms.
- Secure rooms that create a safe environment for patients who are a risk to themselves or others.
- A negative-air-pressure room for patients with certain communicable diseases.
- Lab, imaging and other diagnostic tests to help us diagnose and treat you quickly.
Air ambulance services
When patients need air transport to a higher level of care, we work with Airlift Northwest and Life Flight to determine which organization has an aircraft closest to Port Angeles to ensure the most timely transport.
Airlift Northwest and Life Flight each offer memberships programs, but the memberships are not reciprocal between the organizations. OMC prioritizes the most timely transport to meet the needs of patients and cannot guarantee that a patient's member organization will be used for air transport from OMC.