Emergency care
Emergency care is the treatment of unexpected, severe medical injuries or infections. It is typically delivered in an emergency room or an ambulance. Our emergency medicine physicians stabilize your condition as quickly as possible to prepare you for the next step of care or discharge.
Emergency room (ER) in Loxahatchee, FL
When you need treatment right away, HCA Florida Palms West Hospital is your destination for emergency care.
Our state-of-the-art facility allows us to provide patients of all ages with personalized attention. This means we're here for your whole family, when you need it most.
Related Specialties
Learn more about our related specialties
Our emergency services
Our emergency department offers around-the-clock services and is staffed with board-certified physicians, highly skilled nurses and specialized support staff.
Dedicated pediatric emergency care
We understand that nothing is more upsetting than when your child needs emergency care. To help provide you peace of mind during a stressful situation, we offer a dedicated pediatric emergency room just for children.
Equipment, procedures, treatments and even medications can be drastically different for young patients than for adults, which is why our pediatric emergency room offers:
- Access to doctors, subspecialists and nurses specially trained in caring for children
- Dedicated pediatric rooms staffed 24/7 by board-certified, pediatric emergency medicine physicians and pediatricians
- A pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), should hospitalization be necessary
Our pediatric emergency department treats more than 20,000 children each year. We provide an atmosphere that is calming to children and comforting to you.
Additionally, all members of our healthcare team are trained to care for children of all ages, from toddlers to adolescents.
Our emergency room wait times
When it comes to emergency care, our goal is to continually work toward enhancing the care you receive while reducing our wait times. This ensures you get the care you need when you need it most.
Our wait times are updated every 30 minutes and are available on our website.
To find the wait times of the HCA Florida emergency room nearest to you, check the top of our website or text “ER” to 32222.
Note: Message and data rates may apply. Emergency room wait times are approximate and provided for informational purposes only.
When to go to the emergency room
We understand it can be hard to know what type of medical care you need, like whether you should go to the emergency room or wait for your doctor's office to open.
However, we want you to feel secure about your choice for care, which is why we've created a list of symptoms that may indicate you need to visit the emergency room:
- Back pain, when it is unbearable or accompanied by fever, numbness, weakness, confusion, slurred speech, vision loss or loss of control over bladder or bowels
- Broken bones, when the pain is severe or there is a visible deformity
- Chest pain, when it is crushing or squeezing and accompanied by other heart attack symptoms, such as shortness of breath or nausea
- Concussion, when you have lost consciousness, even briefly, or experience amnesia, vomiting, slurred speech or a seizure
- Flu, when symptoms become severe, such as having trouble breathing, vomiting uncontrollably or becoming dehydrated
- Side pain, when it is severe and occurs in the lower right stomach, side or back or is accompanied by fever, nausea, diarrhea or blood in the urine
- Stomach pain, when accompanied by a hard or tender stomach, nausea, shortness of breath, fever or irregular heartbeat
- Trouble breathing, when breathing stops, is noisy or high-pitched and comes with pain in the chest or severe shortness of breath
If you are unsure if your symptoms require an emergency room visit, you can speak to a nurse 24/7 by calling our Consult-A-Nurse® team at (844) 706-8773.
What to expect at the emergency room
When you get to the emergency room, one of our triage nurses will assess your symptoms and vital signs. Next, a registration clerk will collect your insurance card (if available) and other information.
We medically screen, evaluate and stabilize all patients — whether or not they have insurance or are able to pay.
Anyone who has severe, life-threatening illnesses or injuries will be treated first. Everyone else will be treated in the order they arrive.
Before discharge, we encourage you to ask our emergency care teams any questions you have. It is also useful for you to keep all of your paperwork, discharge information and medicines or prescriptions together after you leave the emergency room.
After discharge, our emergency department staff will reach out to your primary care provider to ensure they are updated on your care.
What to bring to the emergency room
When coming to the emergency room, we recommend you bring:
- A list of medicines you currently take
- A list of known allergies
- Copies of results from recent medical tests, if available
- Personal care preferences and restrictions
- A responsible adult or phone number for someone to contact
Looking for a location?
Our Emergency care Locations
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