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Joint Commission Resources (JCR) has launched a "Flu Vaccination Challenge" to underscore the responsibility that hospitals have to help keep their employees and patients healthy this flu season and to increase flu vaccination rates among health care workers.
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A growing number of hospitals are allowing patients to view their own medical records electronically. Does this increase liability risks for emergency staff?
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According to Jill M. Steinberg, a health care attorney with Baker Donelson in Memphis, TN, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) would prevent an ED physician from discussing a patient's HIV status with any other person, even if that person could be potentially exposed to an infectious disease.
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ED physicians should not disclose a patient's HIV status, except when there is a legal mandate to do so and even in this case, this is preferably done through a third party, such as a public health official, advises Matthew Rice, MD, JD, FACEP, an ED physician with Northwest Emergency Physicians of TEAMHealth in Federal Way, WA.
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A man with chest pain tells your ED physician that he uses cocaine and is HIV-positive, then asks the physician not to tell his girlfriend who is about to enter the room.
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[Editor's note: This column addresses readers' questions about the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). If you have a question you'd like answered, contact Steve Lewis, Editor, ED Management, Atlanta. Phone: (770) 442-9805. Fax: (770) 664-8557. E-mail:
[email protected].]
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Recently, a patient at Northwest Medical Center in Tucson, AZ, was diagnosed with measles and ordered into isolation by her physician, but remained unisolated in the ED for more than 12 hours.
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Central nervous system infection due to free-living amoebae generally manifests as either acute meningitis or focal encephalitis.
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A single injection has been approved for a fifth dose of DTaP and the fourth dose of inactivated polio (IPV) in children 4-6 years of age. The combination vaccine is marketed by GlaxoSmithKline as KINRIX.