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Many odors are noxious, but few are as repellent as the foul smell of massive hematochezia. Everybody in the emergency department knows something is wrong. Once you get past the smell, you realize you often have a very ill patient with a complex medical history and underlying comorbidities. Disposition decision is often easy ("ADMIT"), but to whom and where?
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Increasing workloads and pressure and an emphasis on productivity is negatively affecting the safety climate at hospitals, nurses reported in a 2008 online survey of nurses by the Silver Spring, MD-based American Nurses Association (ANA).
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Working nights and rotating shifts can wreak havoc with your sleep schedule. Shift work has been linked to a wide range of hazards, from cardiovascular disease and cancer to fatigue that leads to errors. But researchers have an upbeat message about shift work: You can reduce those ill effects.
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The Swiss tourist with pneumonia who came to the emergency department in a Tucson, AZ, hospital didn't seem like an unusual case. And yet her story would unfold into a cautionary tale for hospitals about why they should be on guard for cases of measles - and why they need accessible records on the immune status of employees.
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When the nurse went to work with a persistent cough, she undoubtedly thought she just had a lingering cold, or perhaps a seasonal allergy. But she actually suffered from pertussis, and inadvertently spread a serious illness to at least 11 infants in the newborn nursery of a Texas hospital.
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The future direction of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is once again in question as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Julie Gerberding, MD, MPH, declined to reappoint John Howard, MD, as director.
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When an obese patient who is fully dependent is admitted to your hospital, it doesn't matter how many health care workers try to work together to manually lift the patient. It cannot be done safely.
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