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It's hard not to be in the way when you walk through the double doors and into Central Peninsula Hospital's temporary emergency department.

Computer stations and medical equipment line the walls of the corridor and doctors and nurses must negotiate their way to and from patient rooms without bumping into something or someone. The waiting room for families looks like your average waiting room and the only natural light staff and patients receive shines through the ambulance bay at the end of the hall.

Fluorescent lights give way to honey-colored wooden walls in a waiting room that's 50 percent larger than the old one. Walk into the new emergency department and the feeling of space increases with wider corridors, space-saving equipment and an interior design that incorporates cream-colored walls with an apple-green trim.

The new emergency department houses 12 individual patient exam rooms, two isolation room, an obstetrics room and an ear, nose and throat room. New patients may get assessed in a triage room adjacent to the new waiting room before they register at the hospital. A new trauma room can handle two patients and function as a mini operating room complete with oxygen, anesthesia and suction, which come through tubes suspended from the ceiling, and an area where doctors and nurses can scrub in.

"If we had large accidents (patients would) go to OR," said Andie Posey, chief nursing officer for the emergency department. "Stuff can be done right here. We have more space for accommodating a bigger team."

Posey, Emergency Department Nursing Director Betsy Grant and hospital spokeswoman Bonnie Nichols answered questions as hospital volunteers brought staff and community members through the new emergency department. The hospital gave people a chance to examine the department's new call system for patients, get a closer look at the pneumatic tube that connects the department with the laboratory and peak inside the isolation room. The new department will begin taking patients Wednesday, just in time for the huge influx of tourists that flood the hospital each season with scrapes and scratches of every description.

"We keep a running total of fish hook injuries," Grant said. Every summer the emergency department brings out two Styrofoam mannequins decked out in fishing gear and allows each fish-hook victim to deposit their hook some where on the dummies' body. "(We have) 28 technicians and two RNs coming as extra staff for the summer," she said.

Posey said construction began on the new emergency department in September 2007. The old emergency department would be closed and be remodeled to provide office space for patient financial services and accounting, Nichols said.

One of the most positive things about the new emergency department is that patients will be seen by a nurse almost immediately. Chief Financial Officer Jason Paret said one of the hospital's goals was to improve patient flow and they started with the department's entry ways. There are two ways to enter the department: either through the ambulance bay or under the awning. Patients get assessed by a nurse and can flow into obstetrics, surgery or be discharged right away.

The new department also emphasizes patient privacy, opting for separate examination rooms rather than spaces separated from each other by curtains. Each room has a television set, an intercom that allows them to call for help without pushing a button and a door and curtains that shuts, providing for additional privacy. When patients are discharged they meet with a staff member in a private office instead of discussing their care and concerns in a hospital where everyone can hear them.

Paret said Central Peninsula Hospital has adopted the Planetree method of patient-centered health care and is compared to 700 other hospitals nationwide. When constructing its new emergency department, the hospital worked with health care architects and looked at other Planetree hospitals.

"(We received) the input of staff and ER physicians, primary care physicians and specialty physicians," he said. "Everyone had input."

Emergency department staff will begin moving equipment and beds over to the new department on Wednesday. All current patients who are at the emergency department will stay in the temporary department to be discharged while new patients will be admitted through the new department. The transition will be rapid, Posey said, it only took staff three hours to move from the old department to the temporary department.

Jessica Cejnar can be reached at jessica.cejnar@peninsulaclarion.com.