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The number of people in Medicaid's managed care plans is growing, but more of these new enrollees are children and their parents, rather than the higher-cost aged, blind, and disabled population. In 1997, Pennsylvania began to implement a program called HealthChoices and move people on Medicaid into mandatory managed care.
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While surging Medicaid enrollment and plunging revenues are making headlines, a less visible issue is how states pay for health care. However, this may be the single best answer to containing costs under health care reform, according to a May 2010 policy brief from the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) in Hamilton, NJ.
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(Editor's Note: This is the second part of a two-part series on keeping patients safe during lengthy wait times. Last month, we gave practices to identify a patient's deterioration, enlist the help of others in visualizing patients, and instruct family members. This month, we report on identifying which patients are at high risk for deterioration, using safe triage practice, and avoiding blocked views of patients.)
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At Singing River Hospital in Pascagoula, MS, an "ST-elevation Myocardial Infarction (STEMI) Alert Protocol" helps ED nurses to meet a door-to-balloon time of 60 minutes or less.
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Patients with a mechanism of injury relating to chest trauma, such as penetrating or blunt trauma, are more likely to require a chest tube, says Shelley L. Sides, RN, MSN, EMT-I, trauma coordinator at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, ME.
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Of 21,112 sickle cell disease patients in eight states who were hospitalized or treated and released from hospital emergency departments in 2005 and 2006, 40% returned to the ED for treatment of pain or were rehospitalized within 30 days.
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You might assume that caregivers of asthmatic children probably understand how to use inhaled corticosteroids, but a recent study shows this might not be the case.
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A very sick elder with multiple chronic conditions presented to ED nurses at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix with vague symptoms including shortness of breath. Her initial EKG revealed a paced rhythm.
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A man was given 10 times the normal dose of epinephrine, after presenting to an ED in June 2010 with an acute allergic reaction.