ED Management – February 1, 2004
February 1, 2004
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Avoid construction nightmares
Sooner or later, your emergency department will be the site of some type of construction project, whether it is a full-scale renovation or a relatively small repair job. If you think your ED is hectic now, just imagine a bunch of construction workers tearing out walls with sledgehammers and sawing lumber while your physicians and staff try to continue with patient care. -
Tips for surviving work projects in your ED
Jon Huddy, managing principal of FreemanWhite, a Charlotte, NC-based firm that specializes in health care facility design, offers these tips for surviving construction in your ED. -
Increase capacity with chest pain accreditation
If you already are working to optimize the care of cardiac patients in your ED, seeking accreditation as a chest pain center can be a good way to draw attention to your efforts, improve capacity, and make sure you maintain those standards over time. -
Code STEMI moves heart patients quickly from ED
One part of the special cardiac care program that helped Florida Hospital in Orlando receive accreditation as a chest pain center is the Code STEMI program. Code STEMI stands for segment elevation myocardial infarction and results in the patient being transported quickly from the ED to the catheterization lab. -
Headache, abdominal pain pose liability risk
This is the second of a three-part series covering the top five issues that lead to malpractice claims in the ED and how you can address them. The January 2004 issue of ED Management addressed chest pain, and this months installment involves headache and abdominal pain. -
Headache case illustrates the risks of poor ED care
To explain how EDs often leave themselves open for liability when treating headaches, Diane M. Sixsmith, MD, MPH, FACEP, chairman of emergency medicine at New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens in Flushing, tells a story, based on a real incident, in which everything went wrong. -
A billing analyst can find $300,000 for your ED
A dedicated billing analyst for your ED can generate hundreds of thousands of dollars that goes straight to the bottom line instead of just flying out the window, say two managers who have added about $300,000 a year. -
Coding study shows wide variance, undercoding
More than a year after implementation of the Medicare outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS), there are unexpected variances in the assignment of evaluation and management (E&M) codes on claims from EDs, suggesting many are undercoded or overcoded and may risk compliance charges. -
Medicare issues rule on smallpox damages
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced an interim final rule to identify and compensate ED staff and others injured as a result of receiving a smallpox vaccine. -
ACEP endorses rules for avoiding wrong sites
The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) in Irving, TX, has joined more than 40 organizations endorsing a new universal protocol to standardize pre-surgery procedures for verifying the correct patient, the correct procedure, and the correct surgical site. -
EMTALA Q & A
We have a hospital 25 miles away that can provide a higher level of critical care for trauma than what we can provide. We recently signed an agreement with them that allows our community-owned ambulance (basic life support) team to call them to dispatch their paramedic squad for an intercept for trauma situations that the ambulance crew feels we cannot handle at our local hospital... -
ED Accreditation Update: Disease-specific certification links EDs to continuum of care, may reduce return visits by the chronically ill
Your ED is geared toward delivering acute care to sick or injured patients, but hospitals that aspire to earning disease-specific care (DSC) certification are requiring their EDs to take a fresh look at how they treat patients with chronic illnesses. -
ED Accreditation Update: Joint Commission warns of abbreviations to avoid
Emphasizing the importance it places on eliminating easily misinterpreted abbreviations and acronyms from written orders and medical records, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has amended patient safety goals to urge hospitals to achieve 100% compliance by the end of this year. -
ED Accreditation Update: More core performance data required in 2004
As of Jan. 1, your accredited hospital was required to collect and report data on one additional core measure set as part of an expansion of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organization's ORYX initiative. -
ED Accreditation Update: Delayed treatment causes most sentinel events in ED
Delay in treatment remains the most common cause of sentinel events in EDs, accounting for more than half of all sentinel events originating in EDs since the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations began tracking the events in 1995. -
ED Accreditation Update: Accreditation Q & A
In light of changes to the survey process made last year, what does my ED need to provide to surveyors to demonstrate compliance with staffing effectiveness standards?