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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.
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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.
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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.
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Childrens National Medical Center in Washington, DC, has had interpretation services available for patients both telephonic and live interpreters for several years.
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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.
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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.
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In March 2005, seven representatives from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) made a surprise visit to Methodist Hospital in Gary, IN. During the unannounced visit, surveyors reported an overcrowded ED with patients whose needs should have been tended to more quickly.
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The recent fining of Behavioral Hospital of Lutcher (LA) for allegedly failing to appropriately accept transfers of two patients suffering psychiatric emergencies may have offered a bit of consolation to ED managers who are increasingly frustrated by their inability to successfully transfer such patients, but it was also a sober reminder of the severity of the problem.
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Hurricane Katrinas impact was felt far beyond those areas that received the storms direct fury. From Alabama to Texas, EDs that already were overcrowded had to deal with a sudden influx of transfers that, in most cases, doubled their normal censuses.
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Hurricane Katrina, clearly, was a health care disaster of unimaginable proportions. In the wake of the storm, Gulf Coast hospital emergency generators were rendered inoperable by rising floodwaters.