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Is it a matter of public record that your ED scored in the lowest percentile in the state for meeting recommended timeframes for administering antibiotics?
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Was a patient with an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) placed in your ED's fast track because he was mistakenly thought to have bronchitis?
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While nurses have always had a presence in the emergency department (ED), the increasing prevalence and utilization of physician assistants (PAs) in EDs across the nation is generating a new and unique liability for emergency physicians (EPs). This article will familiarize the reader with pertinent legal concepts and recent cases that enlighten the issue of liability for ancillary staff in the ED.
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Pertussis, commonly known as the "whooping cough," is an infection of the upper respiratory tract leading to a protracted cough illness. Emergency physicians should become familiar with the diagnosis and management of this disease, given the potential of pertussis to cause serious morbidity and mortality in young infants and protracted illness in adolescents and adults. Furthermore, diagnosing and treating pertussis in a timely manner has a large public health impact, given its extremely contagious nature.
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Emergency department administrators are well aware that crowding in the ED is associated with poorer patient outcomes, longer hospital stays, and decreased patient satisfaction.
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One of the problems associated with the boarding of admitted patients in the ED is that the practice inevitably leads to increased diversion when the ED's capacity to care for new patients is diminished.
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More than 900 hospitals have been certified as Primary Stroke Centers since The Joint Commission (TJC) and the American Heart Association (AHA)/American Stroke Association (ASA) introduced the Primary Stroke Center certification program back in 2003.
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Sometimes home-grown solutions are the best ones. And if you happen to have an emergency medicine physician in your midst who is also a computer engineer, the pathway between a new idea and implementation can be especially short.
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There is significant variation in emergency physicians ordering of head CT scans for trauma patients, according to a survey of 37 attending EPs conducted during 2009, which quantified their risk tolerance and malpractice fear.1
