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The ED at Twin County Regional Hospital in Galax, VA, succeeded in cutting its door-to-doc time from 121 minutes to 19 minutes in just seven weeks â while annual volume was climbing from 19,000 to about 30,000 â by combining a process improvement plan designed by a health care consulting firm, the leadership of the hospital CEO, and the ED's medical director.
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After months of anticipation, The Joint Commission has released its "proposed requirements to advance effective communication, cultural competence, and patient-centered care" for field review. If approved, they will represent some significant new challenges for ED managers.
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To address patient flow EDs across the country are employing different variations around boarding inpatients in upstairs hallways.
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How would you like to be told that the hospital that houses your ED the large, "mother" facility that receives your patients for admission and provides a host of ancillary services that makes the running of your department go more smoothly was going to shut down, and that you were going to have to transform into a satellite ED (SED)?
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What are the leading ED best practices in large health systems? According to one national survey, they include taking a business-like approach to the management of the department.
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A growing number of EDs are using physician scribes to help with histories and physical exams, but Joe Danna, MD, FACEP, has been using scribes for much, much more, and he says it's made a world of difference when it comes to staff morale.
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An intervention that provided housing and case management to homeless adults with chronic medical illnesses reduced hospitalizations and ED visits in two Chicago-area hospitals, according to a study recently published in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
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The leaders at San Francisco General Hospital were more than happy to participate in a nationwide Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) program that offers routine rapid HIV testing to all ED patients, but they believed strongly that universal testing was not practical.
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In a recently released advisory opinion, the Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General (OIG) has told the facility that requested the opinion, which they didn't disclose, that its plan to compensate physicians for taking call represented "a low risk of fraud and abuse."
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Five employees from Redlands (CA) Community Hospital recently obtained training in fundamentals of emergency management at the Center for Domestic Preparedness based in Anniston, AL, operated by the Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). ED leaders say this valuable training has made them much better prepared for any disasters they might face.
