-
Since the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) began using tracer methodology as part of its survey process, ED managers have felt the necessity to perform their own tracers in preparation for these periodic visits. In so doing, however, they have learned that tracers can become, in and of themselves, valuable tools for improving processes in the ED.
-
Organ and tissue donations present an important part of the ED managers responsibilities, both in terms of patient/family communication and legal/risk management considerations, say emergency medicine experts.
-
Childrens National Medical Center in Washington, DC, has had interpretation services available for patients both telephonic and live interpreters for several years.
-
The ED at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston has reduced its average length of stay from 6.5 hours to six hours for all patients, and from 4.5 to four hours for nonadmitted patients, since the installation of a wireless tracking system for patients, staff, and equipment.
-
New York City may have a reputation as a fast-paced metropolis where most people are too busy to give you the time of day, but the ED at Jack D. Weiler Hospital, one of three EDs in Bronxs Montefiore Medical Center, has won over patients with an approach focused on friendliness and TLC.
-
With new surge capacity standards from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, EDs are finding that their preparation for any type of patient surge translates into preparation for the infectious patients specifically targeted in the new standard (IC.6.10), which says, As part of emergency management activities, the organization prepares to respond to an influx, or the risk of an influx, of infectious patients.
-
Probably one of the most difficult tasks facing an ED manager is preparing a fast-moving staff for a review by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Most ED staffs thrive in an ever-changing environment and focus attention on what matters most in the next 30 minutes, certainly not the next 30, 60, or 90 days. So whats a manager to do?
-
Many stories are emerging from the EDs and field hospitals responding to patient needs following Hurricane Katrina, but few have been as moving as the e-mail by Hemant H. Vankawala, MD, an emergency physician with Questcare partners in Dallas, Denton (TX) Regional Medical Center, and the downtown Dallas Baylor University Medical Center, sent to several of his colleagues.
-
An accelerated triage process developed by the ED staff at University of California San Diego (UCSD) Medical Center has reduced the frequency of patients who left without being seen by a physician by almost 50% from about 8% to 4%.
-
Joe DiMaggio Childrens Hospital in Hollywood, FL, improved patient satisfaction from the 81st percentile in March 2005 to the 99th percentile in June 2005, and it has remained at that level. At newly opened Memorial Hospital in Miramar, FL, satisfaction rates rose from 85% to 99% in one quarter.
