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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Emergencies Just A Day At The Office For Boss Of Valley Hospital’s Er

Picture an emergency room spilling over with patients. Heart failure has stopped one man’s breathing. Another patient has a ruptured spleen and needs immediate surgery.

Eight more patients wait for help with minor complaints. And then there’s the mother with the screaming baby.

Someone has to decide how to deploy the troops in the emergency room, and at Valley Hospital and Medical Center, that’s Vicki Hunt.

She calls this “managing flow” and it’s one of many components of her job: managing the emergency room.

“Someone needs to be in command,” Hunt says. Also, someone needs to support the emergency room doctors and nurses.

“Then there may be another patient who’s in the waiting room and not complaining at all, but who really needs to be seen right away.” That’s her call, too. It’s all part of seeing the big picture.

Valley Hospital saw 21,000 patients in its emergency room last year.

“That’s a lot of patient-care issues,” Hunt says. It’s also a lot of families to deal with. And although Hunt and others at Valley Hospital say that a minimal number of families complain about waiting too long to be seen in the emergency room - any complaints are too many for Hunt. The hospital is focusing on improving the quality of its patient care, although it already receives top ratings from state reviewers.

Hunt came to the Valley in May. She is a registered nurse, a trauma nurse specialist and a specialist in IV care. That combination of credentials, plus a background working in all-size hospitals, makes her a rare commodity.

Most recently Hunt was director of nursing in Ritzville. That job involved wearing many hats. Hunt tells of riding in the ambulance to care for a husband and wife who’d been in a car accident; directing their care in the emergency room; and finally taxiing the couple to the local airport, once their treatment was complete.

Some of television’s portrayal of life in the emergency room is accurate, Hunt says. The intensity is true to life, she says. But one side never emphasized on prime time is the amount of communication the emergency room manager must have with Emergency Medical Technicians and others who treat patients before the arrive at the ER. She also communicates constantly with other departments of the hospital, once patients have moved on from the ER.

Trouble-shooting and flexibility are daily requirements.

Here’s an example. As Hunt explained the facts of her job to a reporter, a staff member came to the door of her cramped, triangular office to say that a trainee in the records department was inadvertantly printing extra copies of some records, and would Hunt please forgive the confusion.

Hunt was unruffled and grateful for the heads up.

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