Parker emergency department operates and acts like small family, both with themselves and within the community. Most of the medical staff has worked the ED for multiple years and have really gotten to know the patients well, participate in their lives and share the ups and downs together.

A little summary of the Parker ED. CRIT ED serves about 9,000 visits per year and the majority of their visits are ESI 4/5 category. They have a 6 bed emergency department including two trauma bays and one room reserved for womens health/obstetrics. The majority of the visits are urgent care level patients with viral respiratory infections being our most common diagnosis. Intubations are rare with only two or three last year. There is a second hospital in the community that is known as the trauma hospital and most EMS brings trauma or critically ill patients directly to that facility. They do have a small inpatient department capable of around 8-12 beds and generally transfer most of their sick patients and all pediatrics admissions. Transfers are to either the other local hospital, the regional hospital up the road in Lake Havasu City or to Phoenix. Most transfers to Phoenix are via rotary-wing helicopter, which they have siting right outside the ED doors. They have the occasional obstetrics patient and have 2-3 deliveries per year. Most OB labor patients are evaluated and transferred to the local labor and delivery ward in Lake Havasu, as needed.

Services they have related to emergency medicine include a basic lab and plain x-ray available 24/7. They also are awaiting their own point of care Istat in the ED, very shortly. They can run basic labs including troponins and cardiac enzymes, CBC, CMP, basic toxicology, lipase, alcohol levels and cultures. Most other tests are send outs to the other local facility. They have ultrasound during the weekdays. They do not have a CT scanner but can transfer patients whom they feel warrant a CT to the other local hospital and have them return after the images are completed. They then receive a written result report in approximately one hour.

They have no specialty back up in the facility, ever. They work single coverage and in blocks of 12 hour shifts. They do have good support in the community from their specialists and getting a general surgeon, orthopedist, obstetrician, nephrologist or cardiologist on the phone is never a struggle.

Fulltime for their facility is 12 shifts of twelve hours per month. As they are a federal facility, they have to ensure our docs are working 80 hours per two week pay period. This is achieved with some administration time, peer review, projects, etc. So the doctors work 72 clinical hours per two week pay period block. ED director is happy to work with the providers to block their shifts up as they would like. They would want to be part of the community and enjoy a close knit group. It is a feel of a rural, international type clinic with the benefits of easy access to specialists and a wonderful safety net of welcoming facilities accepting transfers.