Which examination room do I need when patient is in Emergency observation?

[nikkimouse02]

What examination room do you need for things like stool collection when the patient is in the emergency room observation wing? I have an entire wing of people all "waiting for an available examination room" for an assortment of tests that normally require a scientist.

I've checked that I have idle emergency nurses (with patient care and patient transportation both turned on), idle emergency doctors (who all seem to be "on standby for critical" even when I turned the trauma centre off for them), idle scientists in the hematology (and the other two scientist rooms but I can't remember their names right now) and a couple of stretchers in the emergency room corridors.

[MedJet]

by emergency observation are you referring to the observation unit or trauma center? this funnels one of two ways: if they're hospitalized in emergency dept they are either at the trauma center or in observation unit. The outpatient clinic would perform a stool collection differently. you likely need an observation unit to hospitalize your emergency clinic patients until they can be diagnosed and either treated or transferred to another dept.

[nikkimouse02]

I mean the observation unit. I have about 20 hospitalized people in the observation unit who are not being tested for anything.

[MedJet]

hmm, do you use any mods? Yeah, a diagnostic unit (examination unit) does not exist within the Emergency dept in this game; that takes a specific dept. Are technologist that run diagnostics in radiology and lab set to serve both clinic and hospitalized patients. I take it you do have ER doctors specifically assigned to the observation unit? Yeah I was able to run a stool sample from my trauma unit, I don't use Observation in my hospital since it becomes absolutely overrun with patients (game doesn't utilize it well) So, as long as you don't have a poorly written mod interfering, your observation unit should be able to run tests of various kinds so as long as your techs are able to work with hospitalized patients.

[nikkimouse02]

Nope, no mods. I have some radiologists set for both clinic and hospitalized in each lab, as well as one in each lab devoted just to hospitalized patients. I have ER doctors assigned as both trauma and to the observation unit, but even my non-trauma ER doctors seem to be waiting "on stand-by". Interestingly, this is only a problem I noticed towards the mid/late game.

How do you operate without Observation? I'd be okay with ditching the place, if I had an alternative?

[MedJet]

I just don't set it up and open it unless I'm trying for that insurance goal that requires 9 depts to be opened. Every time I have opened an observation ward it's overrun by collapse patients. So now I just either admit the collapses to ICU if they have a diagnosis, they go to trauma and are stabilized and transferred, or they are taken to another hospital. The collapse mechanism in this game/and patients with that risk should only in very rare circumstances be reporting to the clinic. I love the game, but the concept of the ER dept in this game is a bit flawed...the clinic should be the clinic, and all patients with collapse risk should be reporting to a true North American modeled ER dept not the clinic. Hope you get to the root of the problem in your game, sounds really odd.

[Sarsgamer]

Radiology and labs are best done by specifying either hospitalized or clinic, never both.

Keep your clinic radiology and labs close to your general doctors offices.

Keep your radiology hospitalized close to your observation rooms (they use them a lot, some more than others). Nurses have to transport them via stretchers.

Hospitalized labs can be further away, like floors above, but quick access to an elevator. Hospitalized patients don't need to go to the lab, nurses instantly (I think) transfer the specimens to the lab and the lab technicians brings the results to the patients room.

Emergency and Observation I do on separate floors. That way I can place various hospitalized radiology on my Observation floor. Also nurses and doctors with their own areas on each floor and specify their jobs.

[Sarsgamer]

Oh also, if I have a patient that looks like it needs multiple lab tests to diagnose I'll send them to observation cause they can get it done quicker.

[nikkimouse02]

I had people specialized in hospitalized, and the route between them wasn't very far but still nothing happened. :(

I also had to open the observation ward in Emergency, because otherwise it marked the whole of the Emergency hospitalization as not complete