Designated emergency departments began in the
early 1970s and functioned mainly as an after-hours
patient entry point where a ward nurse came to
monitor the patient’s condition until the arrival
of a doctor (McKay-Ingalls and Thayre-McCray,
1999). However, the increasing number of patients
presenting to ED, demand for more emergency
care, advances in technology and improvements
in resuscitation procedures led to the need to
expand services and create a specialty area for
the delivery of emergency care. By 1985, these