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The ED patient, lying in bed in her own private room, picks up the all-in-one telephone handset and remote control beside her and calls her husband to tell him shes been in a car accident. She clicks on the 12-inch TV monitor, watches for a while, and then decides to switch over to the radio for some calming music.
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Encouraging patients not to come to your ED? Building a new ED with no waiting room? These are among the creative, and perhaps controversial, strategies adopted by two ED managers determined to address surge capacity in new and more effective ways.
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This column addresses readers questions about the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). Question: How Does EMTALA apply to law enforcement requests for services in the ED?
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ED managers should note two areas of the recently released 2004 Annual Report from the National Trauma Data Bank (NTDB) of the American College of Surgeons (ACS): the aging population and falls, and the number of self-pay payments.
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Two recent studies conducted at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor bring into stark relief the differences between men and women when it comes to the triage and diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction. In a study by Moscucci et al.,1 here are some of the key findings.
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The prospect of uniform codes has been floated in Wisconsin by, of all things, the local media. After a reporter in Marshfield, WI, who was covering a disaster drill at the Marshfield Clinic noted that the overhead announcement of color codes confused employees at nearby St. Michaels Hospital, he ran a follow-up article illustrating the different codes used by hospitals statewide.
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In 2001, in the wake of a tragic incident in West Anaheim (CA) Medical Center where three employees were shot to death, state investigators questioned how the gunman was able to advance to a stairwell and a hospital lobby of the medical center after the first distress call was signaled. To ease staff confusion in such situations, the Healthcare Association of Southern California adopted the nations first standardized hospital emergency codes.
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