Emergency Department Management & Law
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Biden to Send Military Aid to Struggling Hospitals, Millions of COVID-19 Tests to American Homes
The White House has announced its plan to respond to the omicron variant ahead of a possible winter case surge.
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Tearing Down Barriers to Medical Error Reporting
Lack of time, complex systems prevent staff from reporting medical errors, near-misses more often.
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Notification Practices Vary for Emergency Research, Few Participants Withdraw
Find consent processes that protect and preserve patients’ autonomy to the extent possible, while also allowing medical progress to occur and giving participants access to potentially beneficial therapies. Doing so may require
a more creative process than just following the rules. -
Researchers: Emergency Providers Missing Chances to Avert Future Opioid Disasters
Investigators express concern about prescribing rates for medication-assisted treatment after ED visits for opioid overdoses recorded between late 2019 and early 2021.
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Legal Action Possible, But Not Always Advisable, for Bad Reviews of ED Visit
Providers must put emotions aside and make hard calculations on what they are looking to achieve — and how much they are willing to spend.
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In ED, Medication Harms Often Caused by Nontherapeutic Use
Of the 96,925 cases included in an analysis, 69.1% involved therapeutic use. Medication-related misuse, abuse, or self-harm caused approximately 62% of ED visits for medication-related harms in patients age 15-24 years, but only 22% of visits for patients age 55-64 years. For patients younger than age 45 years, 52.5% of ED visits involved nontherapeutic use.
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ED Plays ‘Central Role’ in STEMI Care
This includes prehospital cath lab activation, knowing when it is appropriate to bypass the ED, understanding the sequence of events for patients presenting to the ED, knowing what to do to shorten ED dwell time, and knowing what is best to do if awaiting cath lab arrival.
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Patients’ Involvement in Decision-Making Linked to Lower Malpractice Risks
When there is more than one reasonable treatment option, discussing the options with the patient and documenting the discussion may mitigate malpractice risk, especially in the event of a bad outcome.
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Effective Defense for ED if Allegation Is Failure to Rule Out Aortic Dissection
Aortic dissection is not an easy diagnosis to make, and providers cannot order advanced imaging on every person who comes through the ED. But the mere act of documenting why aortic dissection was thought to be unlikely could make the provider reconsider the decision to discharge — and end up saving a life.
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No Reassessment of Patients in Waiting Room or Hallway Is Malpractice Risk
CMS has been clear: EMTALA applies no matter where a patient comes to the hospital, as well as no matter where the patient is seen. That includes the ED waiting room and hallways. Boarding in the hallway should include periodic checking in with the patient to be sure there has not been a significant adverse change that requires the patient to be moved to a higher level clinical setting.