Acute care?

[fhcp1220]

Hello there! :) This may sound like a stupid question, but...

I recently got a call for an interview for a hospital, and although I had given my resume to work in the Emergency Department, the hospital had called me regarding an interview for an acute care unit. I was just wondering if acute care was another name that referred to the Emergency Department, or if it was for a general medical/surgical floor..

Thank you for reading this post! :)

[Biffbradford]

I've never heard of ER/ED/Emergency referred to as 'acute care'. Sounds like ICU or step down.

[MunoRN, RN]

Acute care usually refers to everything in a hospital except for outpatient services.

[fhcp1220]

That's what I was thinking as well.. I've generally heard acute care referring to the many areas in the hospital (except outpatient), but looking at the hospital's website, it said that they have four areas in the ER, and one of them being "Acute Care".

So would it be a safe assumption that the interview is for the ER department in the Acute Care Unit?

[carolinapooh, BSN, RN]

At SAMMC (and I know this is a military hospital, but we're pretty darned civilianized these days) we have a section of the ED that's dubbed 'FastTrack' and is also referred to as 'the acute care suite'. It's sort of like an urgent care clinic within the ED where the less 'emergency' cases are seen. I have a really good guess that that's what they've got there.

If I were interested in the ED, I think that would be a great place to start, especially if you're a newbie to the ED. Some of those 'acute care' cases can go south pretty quick (triage thinks it's heartburn, you realize it could be a woman in the midst of an MI - yes, I heard of that happening down there). Does the hospital have a website? You might be able to confirm from that.

[fhcp1220]

Thank you so much for all your responses! I am having my interview tomorrow, let's hope it goes well! :)