Tag Archives: emergency room

What to expect when you call 911, and what to do while you wait.

by Gerald Moore, Advanced Emergency Medical Technician (AEMT) at Southwest Health Making the decision to call an ambulance can be very scary. Your adrenaline kicks in, your thoughts start racing, every episode of “Emergency” starts running through your head. So many thoughts and feelings rush in that you find yourself unable to communicate your message [read more]

You’re not alone in your SADness

By Jennifer Miller Kass, MSW, LCSW, Behavioral Health Administrative Director at Southwest Behavioral Services  With all the fog that has fallen on our picturesque community lately, it can be hard to feel excited about getting out of bed or finding motivation. Gloomy and dreary winter weather has this effect on many of us. The days are [read more]

Importance of knowing Infant CPR

by Rebecca L. Wylesky-Durst MSN, MHA, RN – Director of Nursing at Southwest Health As new parents, we have a mental checklist we go through to make sure our home and lives are ready for our new addition. We make sure the car seat is in place, the nursery has all the right touches and [read more]

Viruses Among Us

by Jenny Pritchett, MBA, MPH, RN, CIC, Director of Quality Management & Infection Preventionist at Southwest Health As the hospital’s Infection Preventionist, I complete ongoing surveillance of illnesses throughout our area and provide guidance and recommendations based on this surveillance. Over recent weeks we have been experiencing a mumps outbreak in the Platteville and Dubuque [read more]

Know No

By Jaime Collins, Director of Marketing and Communications It’s been buzzing through social media like an angry hornet. News about recent sexual assaults and their clueless, sexist, misogynistic, violent, and criminal perpetrators is everywhere. And it’s shocking. But our goal should not be to make Facebook explode or to shock people by detailing the damages [read more]

Who’ll Conduct the Rape Exam?

Special To The Washington Post – May 19, 2016 By Terri Slapak-Fugate, Director of Emergency/Urgent Care and the SANE Program Manager at Southwest Health As an emergency-room nurse in southwest Wisconsin, I sometimes encountered patients who had been sexually assaulted — and I was expected to help conduct an exam to collect and preserve DNA evidence, [read more]

A day in the life of an ER nurse.

by Terri Slapak-Fugate, RN “Burr, its cold out” I whisper to myself as I leave my house for work. I crank the heat in my car as I head off into the darkness…not a soul around, because everyone else is still asleep. I’m due in to the hospital at 5:00 am. As I enter the [read more]

Getting You Better Faster – What You Can Expect from Us.

By Dan Rohrbach The best care is care that fits your busy life. That’s why our Emergency Department doctors and staff keep track of what we call “Door to Discharge” time as part of our quality measures. Let’s call it D2D. At Southwest Health our D2D averages just 75 minutes. Let’s be clear. We’re not [read more]