Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital

Los Angeles, California

Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital is located in the heart of South Los Angeles. Originally designed to care for approximately 35,000 patients annually, the 29-bed emergency department served 120,563 patients in 2025.

Despite the high demand, the ED achieved a left-without-being-seen rate of 1 percent through nurse and physician collaboration. This partnership led to the development of a medical screening exam RN role to facilitate timely evaluation, improve throughput and identify low-acuity patients who could be safely discharged post medical screening examination.

The department met another significant challenge when California adopted a state mandate requiring emergency departments to achieve ambulance patient offload times of 30 minutes or less with a compliance rate of 90 percent to help ensure timely access to emergency care and avoid financial penalties. In response to this challenge, the ED implemented an external ambulance patient offload zone, staffed with a triage nurse, EMT and LVN. Within one year, the ED reduced the offload time by approximately 40 percent, ensuring continued access to emergency medical services for the South Los Angeles community.