Emergency Program
Sault Area Hospital

• Visits per year: approximately 70,000.
• All aspects of emergency medicine are covered from paediatrics through geriatric medicine.
  
• The Emergency Department is located at the General Site and is physically divided into two main sections.
  
• The first section is the Core Emergency that is open 24-hours per day and sees all critically and seriously ill patients, as well as all patients when the Walk-in Clinic is closed. It is manned by physicians on FIVE shifts: 0700–1700; 1100-2100; 1500-0100; 1800-0400; 2300-0900. The last two hours of shifts are reserved for clean up time and review of old test results.
  
• The second section is the Fast Track Clinic, also located at the General site, where all deferrable patients are seen and also includes minor suturing and casting. This is manned for 12 hours by two six-hour shifts: 1000 to 2200.
  
• Physicians are remunerated based on an AFA model.  
• The Emergency Department is staffed by a combination of full-time dedicated emergency physicians and part-time family physicians doing emergency work. Physicians doing core emergency shifts are required to have competency in ACLS, ATLS, and PALS, or show equivalent experience.
  
• Support services include a fully staffed internal medicine department. Subspecialties include cardiology, gastroenterology, endocrinology, respiratory, oncology, paediatrics and nephrology. Physicians with a special interest in rheumatology and neurology are available and two pathologists are on staff.
• Availability of surgical services includes general surgery, vascular surgery, urology, ophthalmology, gynaecology, orthopaedic, plastic and thoracic surgery (limited). Neither cardiac, nor neurosurgery are done in the community.
• C.T. Scan, MRI and a full Radiology Department are adjacent to the Emergency Department. ER is equipped with a portable ultrasound machine. Nuclear Medicine is located in an adjacent building (Plummer site).
• Teaching opportunities: Affiliation with the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) provides the opportunity to teach residents and medical students.

• CME Program includes weekly Physician Education Rounds, IM Education Rounds and monthly ER rounds.