Most people don’t research emergency treatment until an emergency arises. ECMC Emergency Department can serve you 24/7. From physicians board certified in emergency medicine to registered nurses trained in emergency care, you’ll receive expert care.
Dr. Michael A. Manka, Jr., Chief of Emergency Medicine, discusses services available at ECMC Emergency Department.
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Michael A. Manka Jr., MD
Dr. Michael Manka is Chief of Emergency Medicine at ECMC. A residency-trained emergency physician, he is board certified, a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians, and a member of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.Learn more about Dr. Michael Manka
Transcription:
Bill Klaproth (Host): From broken bones to sudden illnesses to severe trauma, the emergency department at ECMC is dedicated to providing the highest quality emergency care available in an environment committed to patient satisfaction. Here to talk with us about the ECMC emergency department and the services and programs offered is Dr. Michael Manka Jr. Chief of Emergency Medicine at Erie County Medical Center. Dr. Manka, thank you for your time. So, approximately how many people do you see at the ECMC emergency department every year?
Michael A. Manka Jr., MD (Guest): Well our visits continue to rise like most emergency departments around the country. This past year we saw just over 70,000 visits and we are on pace this year to go a little higher even into the low 70s.
Bill: That’s a lot of people coming to the ER.
Dr. Manka: Absolutely. Our days are busy from early morning hours all the way through the night.
Bill: So, I’m sure most of us have an idea of what services you provide at the emergency department, but what are some of the unique services provided at the ECMC emergency department?
Dr. Manka: Well, probably our most unique service that we provide is that we are the only adult level one trauma center in western New York, so we have trauma surgeons who are on duty in the hospital 24 hours a day available to help us care for the sickest, injured patients in western New York. We also have some special services related to psychiatric emergencies. We take care of most of the psychiatric emergencies in western New York, both our providers and our providers who work in our psychiatric emergency department as well as substance abuse which is a huge problem nowadays especially with the opiate crisis. We provide services for both opiate addiction and other substances including alcohol and we have an in-patient detox and rehab program here at ECMC that starts in the emergency department with counselors available almost 24 hours a day to help us assess patients who are seeking help with their addiction or with detox needs.
Bill: So, more than just broken bones and sudden illnesses, you have a whole variety of services you offer.
Dr. Manka: Yeah, we take care of all of the run of the mill emergencies that patients may have, but we have some of these unique areas that we have some expertise in that’s really unique to our hospital and are focused around mostly trauma, psychiatric, substance abuse and then also we are the renal transplant center of western New York so we see a lot of patients who have kidney disease and in varying forms. We also are a hospital that focuses on sexual assault victims and have a program with our nursing staff as sexual assault nurse examiners to provide patients with those types of problems a much higher level of care than they may receive at other hospitals.
Bill: So, those are the crisis services you offer.
Dr. Manka: Yes. We take care of many victims of sexual assault, but also victims of domestic violence and those patients have access to our sexual assault nurse examiners as I mentioned but also, we have – we team up with crisis services in western New York to come and have their counselors and staff come and assist patients when they come in in these types of situations. We also have a set of hospital chaplains that help us respond to patients and families who are in moments of crisis either because of death of a loved one or a loved one who is really ill, that sort of situation.
Bill: And when it comes to programs, can you tell us about the Smart Program?
Dr. Manka: Sure, the Smart Program was started a number of years ago through the University of Buffalo Emergency Medicine Residency Program which we are part of. And we now have a number of providers who have done specialized training in emergency medical services and we also every year, train. We have a training program for people to do advanced training in emergency medical services. And those providers help the Erie County Government by basically staffing what we call the fly car. Basically, it’s like a paramedic vehicle – level vehicle that goes out to accident scenes or to mass casualty incidents and helps by getting a physician on the scene to help manage the scene when it happens. So, they respond to – the more common things they respond to are things like a bus accident where there’s a bunch of children on a school bus that gets in an accident and someone has to go out and kind of help to triage those patients and see which patients need to go to the hospital and which don’t need to go to the hospital. Those are kind of the run of the mill types of things they do but they are also trained to help with other mass casualty incidents should they occur.
Bill: And speaking of being on remote, can you tell us about the telemedicine program?
Dr. Manka: Sure, we have been providing telemedicine services to the New York State Department of Corrections for many years as well and we have a dedicated room in our department with telemedicine equipment, you know camera and screen so that when an inmate at a correctional facility in New York State becomes ill or injured they can call us and we can help assess the patient even when they don’t have providers, doctors or assistants in the correctional facility. And we can help the staff at the correctional facility take care of the inmate at the facility or help them decide if the inmate needs to go to the hospital, either the local hospital or a tertiary care center depending on what their condition is. So, we have recently expanded that now to also help some of the agencies in the community who service like group homes with patients with cognitive difficulties to assist those facilities with the same type of thing. Trying to help them care for their resident in their homes and to help them decide if a resident who was sick or injured needs to go to the hospital. So, it’s kind of win-win where our providers get to interact with patients who are not in the department and these facilities on the outside can sometimes avoid unnecessary transport of patients to the hospital and also receive kind of a higher level of care by having a physician be involved right at the time instead of waiting until the next day when a provider comes in.
Bill: Which is really important, and this is exciting as well. Can you tell us about the new emergency department you are building?
Dr. Manka: Sure, we have really grown tremendously in terms of the number of patients we see over the past couple of decades which was the last time that our department was fully renovated. So, we’ve known for a number of years now that we are kind of outgrowing our space and in order to really provide the highest level of care to our patients and to have space for them and with good private space for patients and their families, and more comfortable space for patients and their families; we decided to build a new emergency department a few years ago and are currently in the construction phase of that. Hopefully it will be finished in 2020, but it’s going to double the size of our current department. It is going to increase the number of rooms from 34 to 54 patient rooms. So, it’s also going to have a lot more technology built into the department and also much more welcoming, waiting room with more comfortable space for patients who are waiting.
Bill: That’s terrific. And if you could wrap it up for us Dr. Manka. What else do we need to know about the emergency department at ECMC?
Dr. Manka: I think that one of the things that people don’t realize about ECMC is that we are really kind of a jewel of the community in that we have services that most other hospitals don’t have. We see everyday about 20 patients being transferred from other emergency departments in the area just to receive services that we have that other places don’t have. And many patients don’t realize the level of care that they are going to receive if they have never been here before. But we really have a dedicated group of providers both in the emergency department and the hospital that are available for patients in western New York with very unique problems and injuries.
Bill: That is wonderful. And Dr. Manka, thank you so much for your time today and talking with us about the ECMC Emergency Department. For more information on the ECMC Emergency Department please visit www.ecmc.edu, that’s www.ecmc.edu. This is the True Care Health Cast from Erie County Medical Center. I’m Bill Klaproth. Thanks for listening.
Bill Klaproth (Host): From broken bones to sudden illnesses to severe trauma, the emergency department at ECMC is dedicated to providing the highest quality emergency care available in an environment committed to patient satisfaction. Here to talk with us about the ECMC emergency department and the services and programs offered is Dr. Michael Manka Jr. Chief of Emergency Medicine at Erie County Medical Center. Dr. Manka, thank you for your time. So, approximately how many people do you see at the ECMC emergency department every year?
Michael A. Manka Jr., MD (Guest): Well our visits continue to rise like most emergency departments around the country. This past year we saw just over 70,000 visits and we are on pace this year to go a little higher even into the low 70s.
Bill: That’s a lot of people coming to the ER.
Dr. Manka: Absolutely. Our days are busy from early morning hours all the way through the night.
Bill: So, I’m sure most of us have an idea of what services you provide at the emergency department, but what are some of the unique services provided at the ECMC emergency department?
Dr. Manka: Well, probably our most unique service that we provide is that we are the only adult level one trauma center in western New York, so we have trauma surgeons who are on duty in the hospital 24 hours a day available to help us care for the sickest, injured patients in western New York. We also have some special services related to psychiatric emergencies. We take care of most of the psychiatric emergencies in western New York, both our providers and our providers who work in our psychiatric emergency department as well as substance abuse which is a huge problem nowadays especially with the opiate crisis. We provide services for both opiate addiction and other substances including alcohol and we have an in-patient detox and rehab program here at ECMC that starts in the emergency department with counselors available almost 24 hours a day to help us assess patients who are seeking help with their addiction or with detox needs.
Bill: So, more than just broken bones and sudden illnesses, you have a whole variety of services you offer.
Dr. Manka: Yeah, we take care of all of the run of the mill emergencies that patients may have, but we have some of these unique areas that we have some expertise in that’s really unique to our hospital and are focused around mostly trauma, psychiatric, substance abuse and then also we are the renal transplant center of western New York so we see a lot of patients who have kidney disease and in varying forms. We also are a hospital that focuses on sexual assault victims and have a program with our nursing staff as sexual assault nurse examiners to provide patients with those types of problems a much higher level of care than they may receive at other hospitals.
Bill: So, those are the crisis services you offer.
Dr. Manka: Yes. We take care of many victims of sexual assault, but also victims of domestic violence and those patients have access to our sexual assault nurse examiners as I mentioned but also, we have – we team up with crisis services in western New York to come and have their counselors and staff come and assist patients when they come in in these types of situations. We also have a set of hospital chaplains that help us respond to patients and families who are in moments of crisis either because of death of a loved one or a loved one who is really ill, that sort of situation.
Bill: And when it comes to programs, can you tell us about the Smart Program?
Dr. Manka: Sure, the Smart Program was started a number of years ago through the University of Buffalo Emergency Medicine Residency Program which we are part of. And we now have a number of providers who have done specialized training in emergency medical services and we also every year, train. We have a training program for people to do advanced training in emergency medical services. And those providers help the Erie County Government by basically staffing what we call the fly car. Basically, it’s like a paramedic vehicle – level vehicle that goes out to accident scenes or to mass casualty incidents and helps by getting a physician on the scene to help manage the scene when it happens. So, they respond to – the more common things they respond to are things like a bus accident where there’s a bunch of children on a school bus that gets in an accident and someone has to go out and kind of help to triage those patients and see which patients need to go to the hospital and which don’t need to go to the hospital. Those are kind of the run of the mill types of things they do but they are also trained to help with other mass casualty incidents should they occur.
Bill: And speaking of being on remote, can you tell us about the telemedicine program?
Dr. Manka: Sure, we have been providing telemedicine services to the New York State Department of Corrections for many years as well and we have a dedicated room in our department with telemedicine equipment, you know camera and screen so that when an inmate at a correctional facility in New York State becomes ill or injured they can call us and we can help assess the patient even when they don’t have providers, doctors or assistants in the correctional facility. And we can help the staff at the correctional facility take care of the inmate at the facility or help them decide if the inmate needs to go to the hospital, either the local hospital or a tertiary care center depending on what their condition is. So, we have recently expanded that now to also help some of the agencies in the community who service like group homes with patients with cognitive difficulties to assist those facilities with the same type of thing. Trying to help them care for their resident in their homes and to help them decide if a resident who was sick or injured needs to go to the hospital. So, it’s kind of win-win where our providers get to interact with patients who are not in the department and these facilities on the outside can sometimes avoid unnecessary transport of patients to the hospital and also receive kind of a higher level of care by having a physician be involved right at the time instead of waiting until the next day when a provider comes in.
Bill: Which is really important, and this is exciting as well. Can you tell us about the new emergency department you are building?
Dr. Manka: Sure, we have really grown tremendously in terms of the number of patients we see over the past couple of decades which was the last time that our department was fully renovated. So, we’ve known for a number of years now that we are kind of outgrowing our space and in order to really provide the highest level of care to our patients and to have space for them and with good private space for patients and their families, and more comfortable space for patients and their families; we decided to build a new emergency department a few years ago and are currently in the construction phase of that. Hopefully it will be finished in 2020, but it’s going to double the size of our current department. It is going to increase the number of rooms from 34 to 54 patient rooms. So, it’s also going to have a lot more technology built into the department and also much more welcoming, waiting room with more comfortable space for patients who are waiting.
Bill: That’s terrific. And if you could wrap it up for us Dr. Manka. What else do we need to know about the emergency department at ECMC?
Dr. Manka: I think that one of the things that people don’t realize about ECMC is that we are really kind of a jewel of the community in that we have services that most other hospitals don’t have. We see everyday about 20 patients being transferred from other emergency departments in the area just to receive services that we have that other places don’t have. And many patients don’t realize the level of care that they are going to receive if they have never been here before. But we really have a dedicated group of providers both in the emergency department and the hospital that are available for patients in western New York with very unique problems and injuries.
Bill: That is wonderful. And Dr. Manka, thank you so much for your time today and talking with us about the ECMC Emergency Department. For more information on the ECMC Emergency Department please visit www.ecmc.edu, that’s www.ecmc.edu. This is the True Care Health Cast from Erie County Medical Center. I’m Bill Klaproth. Thanks for listening.