In a city where a visit to an emergency department can mean endless hours of waiting to be seen, let alone treated, NYU Langone Health—Cobble Hill’s emergency department (ED) stands apart. Since it opened 3 years ago in a neighborhood adjacent to Brooklyn Heights, this ED has successfully evaluated 90 percent of its patients within 10 minutes of their arrival.

A freestanding 16-bed emergency department, NYU Langone Health—Cobble Hill—staffed by some 30 emergency medicine specialists from NYU Langone’s Ronald O. Perelman Department of Emergency Medicine and more than 40 nurses—provides full-service care 24/7 for the range of emergencies typically seen in a hospital. If needed, NYU Langone specialists can offer consultations via live video conferencing. When patients need to be admitted to a hospital, on-site ambulances transfer about half of them to NYU Langone Hospital—Brooklyn and the others to either Tisch Hospital or NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital, both at NYU Langone.

With 20,000 patients annually, a third of whom arrive by ambulance, how does NYU Langone Health—Cobble Hill manage to provide such speedy service? The answer is a few simple yet highly effective strategies. First, there’s no waiting room. Incoming patients go directly into the ED, are seen immediately by a triage nurse, and shortly thereafter by a physician or physician assistant.

Second, patients are literally seen. Caregivers situated in the center of a large rectangular area have a commanding view of all the surrounding activity. “You can see everybody in the ED,” notes David Barlas, MD, NYU Langone Health—Cobble Hill’s chief of service. Often, he says, a doctor will go over to the patient as they are being triaged and start his evaluation right away.

But perhaps the most important ingredient for success, Dr. Barlas explains, is what he calls the mentality of the provider: “It’s the sense that we want to provide top-notch care on par with the care patients expect at NYU Langone.”

The patient satisfaction scores seem to say it all: NYU Langone Health—Cobble Hill ranks higher than 91 percent of EDs across the country.

In 2019, NYU Langone Health—Cobble Hill will undergo a transformation, with the construction of a 4-story outpatient facility staffed by more than 400 clinicians and support personnel. It will include a state-of-the-art emergency department, a surgical suite for outpatient procedures, a broad spectrum of primary and specialty care practices, comprehensive imaging services, and a full-service satellite of Perlmutter Cancer Center.