Emergency Department

As the Antelope Valley's only 24-hour, full service emergency medical facility, we strive to provide the highest quality of care to every patient who comes through our doors.

The Triage Process
If you seek care in the Emergency Department, you will first be assessed, or "triaged" by one of the nurses. A nurse practitioner may determine the severity of your illness or injury. The triage station is located immediately next to the waiting room.

Once you have completed the triage process, you will either be provided with on-the-spot care (usually a prescription and medical instructions) and released, or you will be taken into the patient care area for further evaluation and necessary testing and treatment.

How Long Will I Have to Wait?
The Emergency Department handles over 100,000 emergency visits - an average of more than 270 a day - every year.  It is the second busiest Emergency Department in Los Angeles County and one of the busiest in the country.

Like Emergency Departments in hospitals everywhere, we prioritize treatment based on each patient's condition. Patients who are critically ill are seen first.  If many critically ill patients arrive within the same time period and you are not in critical condition, your wait may be extended.

Despite the fact that the department handles so many emergencies each day, steps have been taken to alleviate waiting. Thanks to the highly efficient triage system, 35-40% of non-critical patients go home after never having waited in a treatment room. The average wait for these patients - from arrival to discharge - is three hours. According to the Centers for Disease Control, this mirrors the national average.

An Outstanding Staff Translates to Quality Care
Antelope Valley Hospital may have one of the nation's busiest emergency rooms, but it also has one of the most highly-qualified medical teams providing care. All of the emergency medicine physicians are board certified, while the nurses, nurse practitioners and technicians have advanced training in emergency medicine techniques. We are the only facility in the area approved to provide pediatric emergency care.

Due to our reputation as one of the region's most skilled emergency medical facilities, we are one of only two hospitals in all of Los Angeles County selected by UCLA to train its third and fourth year emergency medicine residents. The majority of our emergency medicine physicians also serve on the clinical faculty at UCLA's medical school, and many have traveled throughout the world to provide care and education.