Nursing at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital
Emergency Department/ Level I Trauma Center
The Emergency Department (ED) at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital serves as the Level I trauma center for the Tidewater region. The services include trauma nurses, trauma team, and Nightingale air ambulance to meet the needs of over 52,000 patients per year. The unit has a total of 42 beds that includes 8 beds for fast track or minor care, 2 trauma beds, 5 critical care beds, and 25 main treatment area beds. The needs for ED services continue to grow, so we have recently begun a renovation project to increase our work space by 10,000 square feet.
Staff orientation and education is important to our excellent care, so we use a competency-based program with a strong foundation of medical/surgical nursing and great teamwork. The ED also offers an ED Internship that includes classes and collaboration with critical care nurses to increase the knowledge base for any new graduates. Patient/nurse ratio is 1:3 or 1:4 depending on the diagnosis and acuity of the patients. The ED program has a strong focus on meeting clinical initiatives and national benchmarking standards across the country.
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