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Airway management that results in a negligence claim usually involves a "difficult airway." Airways classified as difficult typically are compromised by an anatomical or other condition that makes intubation by the oral, nasal, or surgical routes difficult or impossible.
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An elderly man comes to your ED and is admitted to the hospital with severe dehydration and fever of unknown origin. Two days later, an X-ray reveals pneumonia.
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In the early civil cases litigated under the law in the 1990s, the courts held that EMTALA's duty to stabilize continued to apply throughout the patient's entire stay in the hospital, no matter how long it was.
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A man with chest pain tells you that he uses cocaine and is positive for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), then asks you to not tell his girlfriend who is about to enter the room. What are you most likely to be sued for: if you disclose the patient's status, or if you don't tell and his partner gets infected?
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In August of this year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published final rules revising the Medicare hospital inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS). These regulations also contain policy changes related to a hospital's obligations under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act of 1986 (EMTALA).
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This is a two-part series on liability risks regarding antibiotic choice in the emergency department. This month, we report on liability risks involving methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
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In an age of high patient volumes, overcrowding, and prolonged patient stays in emergency departments (EDs), the clinician is challenged to be both efficient and effective on a daily basis.
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Which is the correct antibiotic? It's an increasingly complicated question for ED physicians, and presents significant liability risks.
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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 physicians?
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Some studies suggest that drug screens rarely influence clinical interventions or disposition, but other authors support the use of routine drug screening in the ED. In addition to this dispute, the test itself is associated with problems that restrict its ability to provide real-time, clinically-relevant information and is often misunderstood by the ordering physician.
