If you were hiring people for an emergency department, whom would you want on your team? Experts trained to diagnose and treat heart attacks quickly and effectively? A team specially dedicated to treating burn victims? A team with expertise in treating children? A trauma team? A stroke team?

All of this expertise is already available in the Emergency Department (ED) at Bridgeport Hospital—and has been for decades. All we needed was the state-of-the-art environment that these teams—and you and your loved ones—deserve.

And now, thanks to the generosity of donors throughout our region, we are creating that environment. The first phase of Bridgeport Hospital’s multi-million-dollar Emergency Department Expansion and Renovation Project is completed, and the difference is already obvious.

We’ve added 11,000 square feet of new space—nearly an 80– percent expansion—and provided 55 secure, well-lit parking spaces. Our dramatic new entryway leads to an expanded, comfortable waiting area decorated in soft blues and greens, with maple woodwork, porcelain tile floors and elegant coffered ceilings (see photo). There is comfortable seating, with plenty of natural light, and space for a rock garden just beyond the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. There’s even a soothing indoor water sculpture!

For your convenience, we have relocated our special areas for treating children and for treat and release services, putting them in a separate part of the ED.

In other words, we’ve fashioned an environment that clearly reflects the high caliber of emergency care we have always provided.

We are undertaking this renovation because we know that our ED is not just a department, but a doorway that opens into Fairfield County’s most comprehensive hospital. In our new ED, you’ll be given the initial treatment needed to save life or limb, to diagnose what has happened, and to determine what kind of treatment will be required. You may be able to go home after receiving expert emergency care from our dedicated emergency team. Or you may need to go on into the hospital to benefit from some of our wide array of medical, surgical and specialty services:

• The Heart Institute (Bridgeport Hospital has been named one of America’s 100 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals®—and we are the only hospital in Connecticut to make this list in both 2005 and 2006.)
• The only Pediatric Intensive Care Unit in Fairfield County, and a Newborn Intensive Care Unit for critically ill children
• The Dr. Andrew J. and Henrietta Panettieri Burn Center—the only dedicated Burn Center between New York and Boston
• Twelve inpatient Operating Rooms and eight SurgEase (same-day) Operating Rooms, where more than 14,000 surgeries are performed each year
• Cardiac, Medical and Surgical Intensive Care Units to provide high-tech care for critically ill or injured patients who need hospital care after their emergency treatment or surgery
• Psychiatric and Geriatric-Psychiatric inpatient units for those with mental or emotional illnesses
• More than 500 physicians in 12 specialties and 70 subspecialties.

So here is what you want in an emergency department: an open doorway, not just to the highest quality of emergency care, but to a hospital-wide array of leading-edge services.

Here’s what you don’t want to see in an emergency department: yourself, or any of your friends or family. We agree. We hope you’ll never need our sophisticated new facility. But if you ever do need us, we’re here—bigger, brighter and better than ever, with entire teams of experienced ED doctors, nurses and other dedicated professionals, ready for whatever may come through our new doorway.

A soothing water sculpture greets those who enter the new Emergency Department at Bridgeport Hospital.