It's a busy night in the Grady emergency room, and at other Atlanta hospitals too. In fact, more than half the emergency rooms have called the ambulance services on this sweltering summer evening to say they can't take any more patients.
Rooms are full.
Halls are backed up. So the patients come in rotation, diverted from one area ER to another, while doctors and nurses and patients cope with the reality of too many sick and injured and frightened people. That's not just wishful thinking. It's the promise of a new model being developed by Emory's emergency medicine department that posits the future can be changed. Emergencies can be stopped before they happen.