Emergency care

In our facilities, we bring nationally accredited emergency care right to your neighborhood in Florida's Pasco, Hillsborough and northern Pinellas counties.

In each of our emergency rooms, we offer:

• Advanced facilities and technology
• Convenient 24/7 access to care
• Diagnostic ultrasound at your bedside
• On-site diagnostic services, including computerized tomography (CT) scans, X-rays and laboratory services
• Wait times below the national average

If you or a loved one experiences chest pain, it can be very frightening. Which is why our emergency rooms offer comprehensive services based on proven techniques for chest pain and heart attack care.

If your condition requires additional treatment, our experienced heart specialists provide complete cardiovascular services, including cardiac catheterization and open-heart surgery.

Men and women may experience different symptoms when having a heart attack.

Heart attack symptoms in men typically include:

• Arm and stomach discomfort
• Back and neck discomfort
• Breaking out in a cold sweat
• Chest or arm pain
• Dizziness or nausea
• Shortness of breath

Heart attack symptoms in women typically include:

• Anxiety
• Breaking out in a cold sweat
• Dizziness, nausea and sudden weakness
• Pain in the jaw, shoulders or upper back
• Shortness of breath
• Unusual fatigue

A stroke can be a devastating, life-threatening event, and it always requires immediate medical attention. In fact, time is the most critical element when treating a stroke to achieve the best possible recovery.

Because of this, our emergency room provides rapid-response stroke treatment, including:

• Advanced stroke care available 24/7
• Experienced emergency care professionals trained in stroke care
• Minimally invasive surgery
• Nonsurgical treatments using advanced drugs and procedures to dissolve or remove clots
• Comprehensive rehabilitation services

Because of our dedication to stroke care and successful patient outcomes when treating a stroke, we are accredited as an Advanced Primary Stroke Center by The Joint Commission.

In addition to our main emergency room, we offer access to three freestanding ERs:

• HCA Florida Citrus Park Emergency
• HCA Florida Lutz Emergency
• HCA Florida Lake Tarpon Emergency (Palm Harbor)

Our freestanding emergency rooms provide the same services and level of care as our in-hospital emergency room, excluding magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and catheterization (cath) lab services. Patients needing those services are transported by ambulance to our main campus.

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 and digital screens on roadside billboards throughout the region.

To find out 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.

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 (727) 834-5630.

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.

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