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Fast-track systems and 23-hour observation units are helping EDs across the country reduce ambulance diversions, but more effort is needed, one analyst says. A hospitalwide focus on more efficient use of beds also is helping ease the problem, she adds.
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Question: Should we have a plan for responding to patients on the hospital property, but not in the ED area, when they need or request emergency care? The final rule seems to make clear that we are not obligated to rush out of the ED to provide care for anyone who does not come to a dedicated emergency department, but were not clear on what should happen when that person is elsewhere on the campus.
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As an ED manager, you may be accustomed to handling the brunt of responsibility for accreditation surveys. But under the new Shared Visions New Pathways process from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, surveyors will be talking with your staff and your patients. How on earth can you prepare for that?
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Many ED managers are unsure of how to prepare for unannounced surveys from the Joint Commission of Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, which began for all facilities on Jan. 1. Here are insights from those who have had firsthand experience with the process.
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Having managers or directors perform tours of your ED can help you and your staff prepare for unannounced surveys, say sources interviewed by ED Accreditation Update.
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When a trauma patient comes to your ED, are head and extremity injuries the first thing on your radar screen? Nurses often look for obvious trauma and forget to assess the abdomen sort of like the saying out of sight, out of mind, says Kelly Arashin, RN, CEN, night charge nurse and trauma coordinator for the ED at Hilton Head (SC) Regional Medical Center.
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This is the second of a two-part series on switching to a five-level triage system. This month, well cover effective strategies to avoid problems during the transition.
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Are you ever tempted to tell a patient with a sore throat who comes to your ED on a busy Saturday night that hell most likely be there in the morning, still waiting to be seen? What about if a woman with a headache asks you if shell make it home in time to pick up the kids at school and you take one look at the crowded waiting room and know the answer is no?
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Have you pictured accreditation surveyors interviewing your newest, least well-spoken nurse about your restraint policy, as part of the new Shared Visions, New Pathways survey process that began in January 2004? Or have you envisioned patient tracers being done for an ED patient where everything that could go wrong, did?
