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All emergency physicians should be quite familiar with the use of succinylcholine for neuromuscular blockade to facilitate endotracheal intubation.
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Federal agencies and professional societies currently recommend that patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) receive their initial dose of antibiotics within 8 hours of hospital arrival. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services conducted this study to explore further associations between timing of initial antibiotic doses and clinical outcomes.
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In this substudy of the ENTIRE-TIMI 23 trial (enoxaparin tenecteplase-tPA with or without glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitor as reperfusion strategy in ST-segment elevation MI), 483 patients with STEMI were randomized to receive various treatment arms of fibrinolysis, glycoprotein inhibitor, and heparins, followed by immediate
angiography to assess reperfusion.
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Imagine a middle-aged woman who seems a bit nervous and whose hands are shaking slightly. Would you suspect alcohol withdrawal syndrome in this patient? If not detected quickly, the patients symptoms could quickly become life-threatening.
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What is likely to be a more powerful morale booster than a pat on the back from your manager? A sincere compliment from a colleague.
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If there were a way you could substantially reduce the risk of infusion pump errors in your ED, would you do so? Surprisingly, although new technology is available that can prevent adverse outcomes from misprogrammed infusion pumps; only a small number of EDs are using this technology.
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Would you like to improve patient flow by decreasing the number of nonurgent patients waiting for care in your already crowded ED waiting room? At University of Colorado Hospital in Denver, physicians and specially trained ED nurses perform an expedited medical screening examination (MSE) after triage but before registration, and they report dramatic results.
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Its the worst pediatric trauma case youve ever seen in your ED: A child has life-threatening injuries from a motor vehicle accident. You rush to gather supplies and notice that the appropriate-sized chest tube is missing.
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Whats the toughest new requirement for EDs in the 2005 National Patient Safety Goals from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations? For many ED nurses, thats an easy question: They point without hesitation to the goal requiring that medications are reconciled across the continuum of care.
