Emergency Services

EMH Healthcare offers three full-service, 24-hour, 7-day-a-week emergency departments to serve you and your family.

Specially-trained physicians work alongside nurses, technicians and teams of healthcare providers to provide comprehensive critical care.

Local air medical transport service is available at all three EMH emergency department locations in the event of severe trauma.

Locations:

Welcome to the Emergency Departments of EMH Healthcare.

Information About How We Manage Pain

Our emergency department staff understands that pain relief is important when someone is hurt or needs emergency care.  However, providing ongoing pain relief is often complex.  Because mistakes or misuse of pain medication can cause serious health problems and even death, it is important that you be honest about all medications.  Our emergency department will only provide pain relief options that are safe and appropriate.

For your safety, we follow these guidelines when managing chronic pain:

1. We are trained to look for and treat an emergency or urgent condition.  We use our best judgment when treating pain, and follow all legal and ethical guidelines.
2. We typically do not prescribe narcotic pain medicine for chronic pain:
   1. After the first emergency department (ED) or urgent care facility visit
   2. If you have already received narcotic pain medicines from another health care provider, ED or urgent care facility for your condition.
3. We may provide you only enough pain medication to last until you can contact your primary care provider.  We will prescribe pain medication with a lower risk of addiction and overdose when possible.
4. We may contact your primary care provider to discuss your care.  Typically, we will not prescribe narcotic pain medicine if we cannot talk directly with your primary care provider.  If you do not have a primary care provider, we will give you a list of those providers in our area.
5. We will ask you to show a valid photo ID (like a drivers’ license) when you check into the emergency department or before receiving a prescription for narcotic pain medication.  If you do not have a photo ID, we may take your picture for the medical record.
6. We may ask you to give a urine sample before prescribing narcotic pain medication.
7. Health care laws, including HIPAA, allow us to request your medical record and share information with health care providers who are treating you.
8. For your safety, we do not:
   1. Routinely give narcotic pain medication injections (shots or IV) for flare-ups of chronic pain.
   2. Refill stolen or lost prescriptions for narcotics or controlled substances.
   3. Provide missing Subutex, Suboxone, or Methadone doses.
   4. Prescribe long-acting or controlled-release pain medications such as OxyContin, MSContin, Duragesics, Methadone, Exalgo, and Opana ER-+.
9. Frequent users of the ED may have care plans developed to assist in improving their care.  The plans may include avoiding medicines likely to be abused or addictive.
10. Before prescribing a narcotic or other controlled substance, we check the Ohio Automated Rx Reporting System (OARRS) database that tracks your narcotic and other controlled substance prescriptions.
11. To safely care for you, we require an accurate list of your medications and treatment plans.
12. If you need help with narcotic addiction, please contact the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services at www.odadas.state.oh.us/public or toll-free at 1.800.788.1254.  You may also contact Lorain County Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services at www.lcada.com or their 24-hour hotline: 440.277.8190 or the Northern Ohio Recovery Association at www.norainc.org.

It is against the law to attempt to obtain controlled substance pain medicines by deceiving the health care provider caring for you.  This can include getting multiple prescriptions from more than one doctor, or using someone else’s name. 

Thank you for your cooperation as we strive for a balance between reducing misuse and safeguarding legitimate access to treatment.