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What a wonderful winter it has been in America! Snow and ice and everything nice. Stalled cars, streets shut down, schools closed, general chaos tempered with gleeful, giddy, schoolchildren and frustrated parents. Ahh, global warming at its best!
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In 2008, Heartland Regional Medical Center in St. Joseph, MO, was struggling with late start times, long turnovers, and elective cases that sometimes stretched to 4 a.m.
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Sometimes in the rush to adopt new surgical approaches that allows less scarring and quicker discharge, an important fact becomes lost: Minimally invasive procedures are serious surgery with inherent risks and potentially deadly postoperative complications.
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An adverse event in the ED at University Medical Center (UMC) in Las Vegas might have drawn negative media coverage and state and federal investigations, but it also led to process changes that the ED managers say have made a world of difference in patient satisfaction and quality.
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With the release of the National Health Security Strategy (www.hhs.gov/disasters) and interim implementation guide for protecting public health in a large-scale emergency, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has taken the first step toward the realization of a vision long held by emergency response individuals and organizations: a cohesive plan to be followed by everyone in the nation who is involved in disaster response.
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A review of the literature has revealed that injuries in the elderly resulting from motor vehicle crashes has been underdetected, and resulted in patients being inappropriately treated or assigned to nontrauma centers. The article was published in the January 2010 issue of the Journal of Emergency Nursing.
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Many facilities and EDs use the tool called the modified early warning score (MEWS), which includes questions about the patient's health state, to determine if patients are getting sicker and if they require transfer to the intensive care unit (ICU).
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A change in documentation procedures in the ED played a significant role in making it possible for Porter Adventist Hospital in Denver to receive certification as an advanced primary stroke center by The Joint Commission.
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Recognizing that ED wait times and throughput are affected by the entire hospital, the leaders at King's Daughters Medical Center in Ashland, KY, engaged all the departments that interface with the ED and slashed the rate at which ED patients leave before treatment from 5% to 0.5%.
