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While the mapping of the human genome provided scientists with a blueprint for understanding disease, Swedish researchers are trying to take the knowledge one step further, with the human proteome.
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In this special package on responding to unexpected events, we take a look at how ED managers should plan for disasters natural or otherwise that can stretch your resources and your nerves beyond their normal limits. We consider the challenge of treating patients when there is no longer an ED, as was the case at one hospital after Hurricane Charley.
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One of the key challenges for ED managers when faced with a communitywide health crisis be it terrorism, infectious disease, or natural disaster is surge capacity.
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In this first part of a two-part series on benchmarking, we tell you about two hospitals that achieved dramatic reductions in length of stay (LOS). Next month, we discuss how to speed up admissions by addressing virtual capacity issues with the entire hospital.)
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ED management and staff at Fairfield Medical Center in Lancaster, OH, have improved both internal and external customer satisfaction by instituting a system of daily satisfaction surveys. Patient satisfaction is now at 95%, and physician satisfaction is above 90%, when they had both been at about 80% to 85%.
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The danger of the next influenza pandemic has become so crystal clear and ever present that the recently released federal pandemic influenza plan has become something of a page turner among the normally dry reading requirements of the infection control professional. The draft document by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is being reviewed by many as if it may have to be implemented all too soon.
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A new draft pandemic influenza plan issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services calls for a combination of standard precautions and droplet isolation measures and an overall atmosphere of respiratory etiquette in hospitals caring for flu patients.
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A hospital in Melbourne, Australia has contacted 1,056 patients who underwent brain or spinal surgery in the past 18 months after a patient died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), according to published reports. Australian health authorities said in a statement there was an extremely remote risk that the disease could be spread by surgical equipment.
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To avert a looming public health crisis with a unique set of underlying causes, Congress and the administration, including federal public health agencies, must act quickly to reinvigorate pharmaceutical investment in antibiotic research and development (R&D). Otherwise, doctors wont have drugs to protect Americans against antibiotic-resistant infections a rapidly growing and often deadly problem.
