Welcome to the Vanderbilt Adult Emergency Department website!  Vanderbilt is the Level 1 Trauma Center and a major tertiary care referral center for Middle Tennessee. Vanderbilt serves as the only trauma center serving 65,000 square miles with a population of 4.5 million people.  The Emergency Department (ED) has four state of the art trauma bays that provide a location for our '17 minute' trauma resuscitations on Level I patients.  Our trauma philosophy is rapid intake to the hospital environment for the 4000 trauma admissions received at our facility each year.

Medical patients also have access to Vanderbilt's expert specialists and subspecialists that are part of our academic medical center.  The Department of Emergency Medicine provides faculty and emergency medicine residents to oversee the initial care provided in our department.

The Emergency Department completed a $12 million renovation in April, 2005 that  essentially doubled the size of the department.  The new ED has 45 beds in 33,900 square feet of space.  The department has 2 CT scanners, a decontamination shower, and a family grief support room.  Adjacent to the ED is an 8 room psychiatric transition unit and a 7 bed Observation Unit.

The Department earned Stroke Center Accreditation from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations in December, 2005 and Chest Pain Center Accreditation from the Society of Chest Pain Centers in May, 2006.

Rising Patient Satisfaction Scores

Click here to see a presentation about the renovation and a diagram of the Emergency Department.

Click Here for more details about our awards

America's Best Hospitals

Five days at an Honor Roll medical center

U.S. News and World Reports Visits Vanderbilt  

Guestbook

Thanks to the following departments that have site-visited Vanderbilt ED:

• Emergency Nurses Association Scientific Assembly  - September 2005
• Saint Luke's (Kansas City) - November 2005
• Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston)- November 2005
• University of Louisville (Kentucky) - February 2006
• Murray Regional (Tennessee) - March 2006
• Missouri Baptist - August 2006
• University of North Carolina - September 2006
• Hackensack (NJ) University Medical Center - February 2007
• Barnes Jewish (Saint Louis) - February 2007
• Maimonides Medical Center (Brooklyn, NY) - September 2007
• Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust - Addenbrookes (United Kingdom) - January 2008
• Columbus Regional Hospital (Columbus, Indiana) - March 2008
• Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital (Florence, Alabama) - August 2008
• Shoals Hospital (Muscle Shoals, Alabama) - August, 2008
• Truman Medical Center (Kansas City, Mo.) - September, 2008
• Methodist Healthcare (Memphis, TN) - October, 2008)

Our Mission and Vision

Mission

The Vanderbilt Emergency Department provides exemplary and timely care to all patients.  We care for every patient as we would like our own family to be treated.  We are innovative caregivers, learners, researchers, and teachers.

Vision

The Vanderbilt Emergency Department will be recognized as a national 'Center of Excellence' for clinical care, residency training, research, customer satisfaction, and provision of cost-effective, innovative emergency services.

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