By LEAH WEATHERSBY

Let's face it: the best way to visit an emergency room is as an observer. Of course, that isn't always possible - but at least North Seattleites can hope for a private room.

That's especially true for patients who patronize Northwest Hospital, located at 1550 N. 115th St., which will celebrate the first anniversary of its remodeled emergency room in May. The $6 million project, which nearly doubled the size of the old emergency room to 12,000 square feet, gave the hospital something it desperately needed: space.

Thanks to the new improvements, the hospital's emergency room now offers, among other things, a triage room staffed 24 hours a day, and quicker door-to-electrocardiogram time: now only six minutes.

Increased need:

An emergency room is becoming an increasingly important service, says Dr. Greg Schroedl, a Northwest vice president who serves as associate director of the emergency room.

Since the emergency room was last remodeled in 1982, the number of patients using the facility has nearly tripled to 34,000 per year, up from 12,000. Doctors have continued to see an increase in patients since the new facility opened. To make a long story short, Northwest needed all the room it could get.

Not only is the population of North Seattle growing, and aging , says Schroedl - they also have less access than ever to primary care physicians.

That's because the high cost of living and running a business in Seattle makes it tougher to attract new doctors.

Now that Northwest has expanded its emergency room, Schroedl says staff morale is up, and, judging from the number of letters the hospital has received lately, he believes patient satisfaction is too.

Schroedl says that no matter what the future holds, the hospital wants to stick to one patient in a room. When the population grows, he says, he hopes new technology can shorten waits and get more people in and out faster.

Life in a real ER:

Northwest has the only trauma-rated emergency room in North Seattle (it has a lower trauma rating than Harborview.) This means City medics can bring seriously-injured patients there for immediate care.

"The fact that we have a level four trauma center located in North Seattle is very important to this community because it means they don't have to go downtown for everything that happens to them," said Suzi Beerman, public relations manager for Northwest.

The scene on a typical day at this real life ER is far from the pandemonium portrayed in TV shows such as the NBC series of the same name. The emergency room seems calm and under control with most of the 24 patient rooms full but no one in the waiting room. That doesn't mean the doctor's schedules aren't hectic.

"It's typical for me when I'm working to take care of 12 people at a time. You really have to be able to juggle," Schroedl says.

But that's nothing compared to many of the nearly 40 emergency rooms at other hospitals that Schroedl worked in before joining Northwest full-time in 1987.

Schroedl said when he first started his emergency room career in Los Angeles, Calif., he often worked 48-hour shifts. At Northwest, doctors usually work eight-hour shifts and more likely to be treating heart attacks or strokes than gun shot wounds and victims of serious car accidents.

Schroedl says Northwest's new emergency room has enabled his staff to treat heart attack victims more swiftly. They can now reopen a blocked artery within 45 minutes to an hour of the time the patient arrives.

"To be able to do that consistently and reliably is one of the most satisfying things the emergency room," Schroedl said. However, he added, the job has flip side. One of the emergency room's new rooms is a small, private sitting area where patient's families get both good and bad news. "Emergency departments see drama everyday. There are a lot of people who come in here whose lives are never going to be the same."

So what does it take to be a good ER doc? No matter what emergency room you work in, the operative phase seems to be "stay cool."

"The best emergency physicians I know are knowledgeable, thorough and calm," says Schroedl. "You have to be very flexible and not get frazzled."

Thanks to its new emergency room, Northwest is now considering applying for a higher trauma rating in two years, which would allow the hospital to treat a wider range of injuries. To get the higher trauma rating, Northwest would need to show that it has surgeons on call from a broader range of specialties.

Future expansion:

Northwest continues to expand. The hospital plans to start construction on a five-story parking garage on the southwest corner of the campus (near North 115th Street) late this year. The structure is expected to take over a year to build and will add 880 spaces to the facility. Currently, Northwest's campus has parking spaces for approximately 1,000 cars.