UCSF has two Emergency Departments. One at Parnassus that provides care for adults and one a Mission Bay that is the only free-standing children’s emergency in San Francisco. The Parnassus ED is designated as a prehospital stroke and STEMI receiving center for San Francisco. It contains a 64-slice CT scanner, two state-of-the-art resuscitation rooms, and bedside ultrasound. It also has four additional beds for Fast Track and eight beds for a Clinical Decision Unit. The Benioff Children’s Hospital Pediatric ED (BCH) is the pediatric critical care receiving hospital for San Francisco.
At Parnassus Emergency, staff include Nurses, mid-level practitioners, Physicians, a Clinical Nurse Specialist, unit-based Pharmacists, Social workers and Emergency Department Medical Residents. The Mission Bay Children’s Emergency, is staffed by Pediatric Emergency Medicine Physicians and Pediatric Nurses and Child Life Specialists. These highly trained personnel deliver best-practice care for adults and children with complex diseases in emergent situations, offering interventions that can only be found at an academic, tertiary care medical center.
At Parnassus, over 40% of Registered Nurses are Certified Emergency Nurses and 20% have advanced degrees. At Mission Bay 29% are Certified Emergency or Pediatric Emergency Nurses and 12% have advanced degrees. ED nurses participate in unit-based and hospital-wide councils to improve patient care, nursing practice, and professional development of staff.
All UCSF Emergency Nurses place high value on service excellence, critical thinking, and the ability to work effectively in a fast-paced clinical environment. All are Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) and Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) certified and provide critical care therapies such as mechanical ventilation, hemodynamic monitoring, invasive line monitoring, and management of vasoactive drugs.