-
In three years, the ED at Dameron Hospital in Stockton, CA, has achieved total savings of $650,000 through a combination of staffing optimization, creation of atypical shifts and a flexible internal pool, and providing staff the option to take open shifts, all while still meeting the challenging nursing ratios required by the state. These changes were made in concert with The Optime Group, a consulting firm based in Evanston, IL.
-
Even with the outbreak of H1N1 influenza in its relative infancy, and no one knowing for certain how dire the situation might become, ED managers and their staffs are taking the situation very seriously.
-
A process improvement project addressing the entire emergency service line at The Medical Center of Central Georgia in Macon is expected to increase hospital revenues by $20 million $24 million this year, according to DeLanor Doyle, MD, FACEP, the medical director of the emergency center.
-
A new plan for admitting patients from the ED at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore jointly developed by an ED physician and a hospitalist, decreased ED throughput for admitted patients 98 minutes (from 458 minutes to 360 minutes) from the same period a year earlier, despite an 8.8% increase in the ED census.
-
(Editor's note: Janiak has served as an emergency medicine medico-legal consultant for more than 30 years, and he has reviewed hundreds of malpractice cases. In the process, he has recognized common patterns and mistakes that emergency physicians make that set them up to be sued. With his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, Janiak points out the following potential mistakes and ways that lawsuits are created.)
-
Among the most challenging standards from The Joint Commission for the first half of 2008 was standard IM.6.50 "Designated qualified staff accept and transcribe verbal or telephone orders." According to the organization, 40% of hospitals were not in full compliance.
-
The Joint Commission has released a monograph titled "Measuring Hand Hygiene Adherence; Overcoming the Challenges," to help health care organizations target their efforts in measuring hygiene performance.
-
Several EDs across the country have initiated policies to encourage patients who don't face "true" emergencies to seek care elsewhere in the community and to find "medical homes," but none have been met with the outrage that descended upon the University of Chicago Medical Center recently.
-
The senior emergency center at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, MD, may be a rarity, but based on the responses of patients and staff not to mention our increasingly aging population perhaps more EDs should consider creating a separate unit for older patients.
-
A new program in Houston that involves tight teamwork between The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, the Memorial Hermann Heart and Vascular Institute Texas Medical Center, and the Houston Fire Department EMS, as well as an experimental "cocktail" given in the ambulance to patients meeting certain criteria, has dramatically reduced Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI)-to-balloon time and improved survival rates.
