With a CT scanner, ultrasound, X-ray machine, lab, and a pharmacy, the emergency room can serve staff and passengers with various kinds of health issues
Passengers travelling into or out of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport can feel even more secure as the airport has opened the first free-standing emergency room on an airport’s grounds in the world.
The facility, run by Code 3 Emergency Partners, features all the equipment necessary for acute treatment, such as a CT scanner, an ultrasound machine, an X-ray machine, a lab, and a pharmacy. It also includes rooms for short-term observation admissions, and an urgent care facility that is open 24 hours a day.
“Code 3 offers a level of service and care unmatched by hospital emergency departments,” said Carrie de Moor, CEO and founder of Code 3. “Our staff and facility provide VIP care at an affordable cost, with no wait times, so that travellers, residents and employees can quickly get back on their journeys. We want people to know you don’t have to have a boarding pass to be treated. Just come in.”
To meet the airport’s conditions, the staff is certified by the American Board of Emergency Medicine which means that the physicians have been trained extensively in both disaster management and emergency medical systems.
Physicians trained in travel medicine with experience in infectious disease and travel-related illnesses are also employed.
Not only will the emergency room take care of passengers, it will serve airport staff, pilots, and crew members as well as the general public.
Passengers will, in fact, constitute only a minority of patients. Despite being on airport grounds and not past security, it is expected that the 65,000 airport employees will make up 60 to 70 per cent of the business, de Moor said.
“Sometimes, minutes and seconds in emergencies really matter”
However, only a few hours after launching the ER’s first shift, the first patient treated at the facility turned out to be a passenger.
We are now the home to the first freestanding emergency room at an airport.
🏥 https://t.co/XzADSJMTLl pic.twitter.com/OB0PGTWiyu— DFW Airport (@DFWAirport) June 8, 2018
“We had one woman that had chest pains and we checked for a clot,” de Moor said.
Implementing an emergency room upon airport grounds could play an efficient role when it comes to the speed of the treatment. As the length of time to it takes to receive care is a crucial factor for medical emergencies that are linked to flying, such as deep vein thrombosis, the facility could be the difference between life and death.
“Sometimes, minutes and seconds in emergencies really matter,” said de Moor.
