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When the H1N1 virus hit the United States this spring, some EDs were "caught unprepared," according to one emergency medicine expert, and many agree that changes must be made before the virus gains strength this fall, as predicted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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Less than two weeks after instituting a Post-Arrest Hypothermia program for heart attack patients, Providence (CA) Tarzana Medical Center has applied the body-cooling treatment in three cases, and each patient showed remarkable neurologic recovery.
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Patients with heart attacks and other forms of chest pain are three to five times more likely to experience serious complications after hospital admission when they are treated in a crowded ED, according to a new study published online in the journal Academic Emergency Medicine.
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"Every doctor in our group tries to put themselves in the shoes of the medical staff, and ask themselves what they would want done prior to admission and how they would want their patients treated," says Ben Johnston, MD, president of the emergency physician group at Morris (IL) Hospital.
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The medical literature shows that educating children and their parents about asthma can reduce return visits to the ED as well as hospital admissions, and experts say that the ED may well be the best place to provide that education.
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Physicians' personal notes about a patient's care. Incident reports if a patient is harmed. Information given verbally or in writing to the hospital's risk managers.
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According to Ken Braxton, JD, a health care attorney at Dallas-based Stewart Stimmel, ED physicians, when notified of a possible lawsuit or claim, should avoid all of the following actions:
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Two out of the three pandemics in the 20th century made a first pass and then returned in a more virulent "second wave."
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) proposed payment policies and payment rate updates for services furnished to beneficiaries during calendar year 2010 in hospital outpatient departments under the outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS) should have no major impact on ED managers, according to Barbara K. Tomar, federal affairs director of the American College of Emergency Physicians, Washington, DC.
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While ED managers have awaited the results of The Joint Commission's Strategic Improvement Initiative (SII) with some trepidation, their fears by and large might have been unfounded based on some early comments.
