Emergency Department Management & Law
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Challenges in Accessing Resources Lead to ED Psychiatry Consults
Difficulty identifying the “right” level of care for patients, understanding how insurance plays a major role in post-ED care options, and needing help with the operational process of making referrals to outside treatment facilities all are administrative and bureaucratic headaches with which clinicians could use assistance.
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Facilities Require ‘Medical Clearance,’ But Evidence Suggests It Is Unnecessary
A patient may present with new delusions, but an otherwise normal physical exam. Why keep that person in a regular ED treatment space or hallway for hours while waiting for a CT scan? Instead, this patient can avoid exposure to radiation, be “cleared” for evaluation by an acute care psychiatrist or social worker, and receive access to treatment hours earlier.
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American Academy of Pediatrics Offers Solutions to Ease ED Crowding
Group says “coordinated effort across the healthcare delivery system” needed to ensure continuity of care.
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Legal Landmines for Patients Referred to ED for Psychiatric Evaluation
These risks relate to information-sharing for care coordination and continuity of care.
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Out of Options: When Parents Abandon Pediatric Psychiatric Patients at Hospital
Parents often are faced with an impossible choice. They must decide whether to bring home a child who poses a threat to self and others, or risk a child abandonment charge. The criteria for acute psychiatric hospitalization are so high that children might be discharged only to be rehospitalized within weeks or days — and retraumatized in the process.
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‘Medical Clearance’ of Psychiatric Patient Can be Legally Risky
What does "medical clearance" really mean? Does it indicate a patient has no acute issues, or that all the patient’s chronic issues are stable? Or is it both? The answer depends on who you ask.
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Novel Bedside Procedure Improves Tracheostomy Outcomes
Nurse-driven initiative led to zero incidents of tracheostomy medical device-related pressure injuries for three years.
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Confusion Abounds Over Emergency Codes
In a survey, healthcare employees struggled to recall which emergency corresponded to which code.
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Harsh Criticism for New Report on ED Diagnostic Errors
New research that might have injected renewed vigor into improving diagnostic performance in the ED has instead prompted much uproar. In the emergency medicine community, that discussion has been overshadowed by biting criticism about the data and the methodologies investigators used to reach their conclusions — and what some are calling unfair blame placed at the foot of emergency providers.
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Patients with Nonspecific, Atypical Symptoms Could Be Misdiagnosed
An emergency medicine professor explains how providers can reduce risks for ED patients who present with unusual symptoms.