The Emergency Room at Adventist GlenOaks Hospital offers a unique patient experience – there is no waiting room. It is one of only a few hospitals in the country where, upon arrival in the ER, patients are escorted directly to a private treatment room where they are promptly treated.

Joseph Shanahan, M.D., medical director of Emergency Services at Adventist GlenOaks Hospital (pictured above), is credited with bringing the idea to fruition after seeing a similar design at a hospital in Indiana.

“We dared to be different,” Shanahan said. “We felt we could truly differentiate ourselves with an efficient design and patient comforts that can make for a good patient experience.”

That experience includes private rooms big enough to accommodate family members, high ceilings, wide corridors, natural light and skylights, soundproofing, flat screen televisions, Internet access and much more.

“The patients just love it,” Shanahan said. “It’s nice to hear people appreciate what we’ve done.”

The Shanahan Emergency and Trauma Center is named in honor of Shanahan, a long-time emergency physician who pledged a $500,000 gift to the department. The renovated space opened in 2007.

The Emergency Department offers a patient-centered approach to emergency care, which is often overlooked in emergency treatment, said Brinsley Lewis, president and chief executive officer of Adventist GlenOaks Hospital.

“The Emergency Department will be Dr. Shanahan’s legacy to his community,” Lewis said. “The department is the physical outcome of his philosophy of how an emergency room should operate.”

When the decision to expand the Emergency Department was made, Lewis looked for ways the hospital could stand apart from other emergency departments in the area. The department already was promising a 15-minute wait time and the hospital wanted to build on that concept. Lewis saw a story about the no-waiting room concept at Ball Memorial Hospital in Indiana and asked Shanahan to research the idea.

“I’m always ready to listen to ideas that can improve patient care and service,” Lewis said. “Everything Dr. Shanahan came up with has the patient in mind. It was easy to support his vision.”