An acute admissions unit is a short-stay department in some
British,
Australian and
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...
hospitals that may be linked to the
emergency department, but functions as a separate department.
The AMU acts as a gateway between a patient's
general practitioner, the emergency department, and the wards of the hospital. The AMU helps the emergency department produce a healthy turnaround for patients, helping with the
four-hour waiting rule in the United Kingdom. An AMU is usually made up of several bays and has a small number of side-rooms and treatment rooms. They are fully equipped with emergency medical treatment facilities including
defibrillator
Defibrillation is a treatment for life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias, specifically ventricular fibrillation (V-Fib) and non-perfusing ventricular tachycardia (V-Tach). A defibrillator delivers a dose of electric current (often called a ''coun ...
s and
resuscitation
Resuscitation is the process of correcting physiological disorders (such as lack of breathing or heartbeat) in an acutely ill patient. It is an important part of intensive care medicine, anesthesiology, trauma surgery and emergency medicine. ...
equipment.
Patients
From the emergency department, patients can be moved to AMU where they will undergo further tests and stabilisation before they are transferred to the relevant ward or sent home. Also, patients can be admitted straight to AMU from their general practitioner if he or she believes the patient needs hospital treatment. A patient's stay in the unit is limited, usually no more than 48 hours.
The AMU deals with admissions only, patients will never be transferred from a ward to the AMU. Surgical procedures are not carried out in the unit either; these are referred on to the relevant theatre such as
cardiothoracics
Cardiothoracic surgery is the field of medicine involved in surgical treatment of organs inside the thoracic cavity — generally treatment of conditions of the heart (heart disease), lungs ( lung disease), and other pleural or mediastinal stru ...
and general surgery.
Staff
Senior staff in an AMU typically include a