Ready for the Next Life Saved

 

For more than two decades, MetroHealth’s Main Campus Emergency Department (ED) has been where Cleveland turns in a crisis. In 2025, nearly 79,000 patients came through its doors – an average of 215 people every day, with some days reaching 270. Nearly 70% of all hospital inpatients begin their care in the ED, making it quite literally the front door to MetroHealth.

The care delivered inside those walls is among the most advanced in the region. But the physical space –  unchanged since opening in 2004 – was designed for a very different era of emergency medicine. As patient volumes grow and care becomes more complex, a long-overdue transformation is underway to ensure the ED remains ready for the next life saved.

Leaders Shaping a Lifesaving Environment

Charles Emerman, MD, Chair of Emergency Medicine, has served MetroHealth for 43 years. Over his career, he has led the ED through waves of change, helped shape quality initiatives across the system and established MetroHealth’s Addiction Medicine Consult Service and Fellowship.

“Twenty-five years ago, emergency medicine focused on rapid evaluation and admission,” Dr. Emerman said. “Today, we’re delivering advanced care for trauma, stroke and heart attack patients right in the ED. That requires modern infrastructure and purpose-built space.”

Since opening, Dr. Emerman estimates more than 2 million people have passed through the Main Campus ED. “If that many people walked through your living room,” he said, “you would remodel.”

Laura Schmidt, MSN, RN, Executive Director of Nursing Services for the Emergency Department, sees the need from the front lines. After beginning her career in cardiothoracic ICU and emergency nursing, she transitioned into leadership following a multiple sclerosis diagnosis. Today, she focuses on building teams and environments where caregivers can do their best work.

“Our patients are older, sicker and more complex,” Laura said. “The space we work in needs to support today’s emergency care, not the model of 20 years ago.”

 

Why This Transformation Matters

The Main Campus ED is Northeast Ohio’s premier Level 1 Adult Trauma Center, verified since 1992. It handles more than 8,100 trauma patients annually, supports 5,400 air and ground transports a year and receives 50 to 70 ambulances daily, including about 25% of Cleveland EMS transports.

Renovations will modernize clinical spaces, improve workflow and patient flow, expand behavioral health care capacity and create more therapeutic, dignified environments for patients and families. Work began early in 2026 and will be  phased to ensure uninterrupted access to emergency care.

“Patients come to us on the worst day of their lives,” Laura said. “The environment should reflect the excellence, compassion and competence of the people caring for them.”

YOUR IMPACT

“At MetroHealth, it has always been about the team,” Dr. Emerman said. “Give them the right space, and they’ll continue saving lives – around the clock.”

Your generosity ensures MetroHealth’s ED is ready for whatever comes next – today, tomorrow and for the lives still waiting to be saved.

To support the Emergency Department transformation, please contact Debbie Rothschild, Director of Principal Gifts, at 440-592-1399 or drothschild@metrohealth.org. Or, click here to make a donation.

Download the Donor Case for Support.