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Adrienne Jones, RN, an ED nurse at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, OR, says that ED nurses used to see about five to 10 mental-health patients a day, but are now seeing twice as many.
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Editor's Note: This is a two-part series on medication safety for inpatients being held in the ED. This month, we give strategies to avoid missed dosages; next month, we'll cover how ED nurses can reduce errors with inpatient medications.
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Smoking, lung diseases, and chest X-ray abnormalities may result in your ED patient being diagnosed with bronchitis, flu, pleurisy, costochondritis, and upper respiratory infection, when he or she actually has pneumonia, says Carrie April, RN, BSN, an ED nurse at St. John's Mercy Medical Center in St. Louis, MO.
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"Normal-looking" asthma patients, whose condition is poorly controlled with treatment, or patients who are not compliant with treatment, may show up in your ED after weeks of deteriorating gradually, warns Anissa Washington, RN, BSN, ED nurse at St. John's Mercy Medical Center in St. Louis, MO.
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A common presenting complaint for patients seeking emergency medical care is acute abdominal pain. Although difficult to diagnose in healthy patients, it is even more challenging in special populations. This article will focus on three distinct populations: patients with altered immunologic function, pregnant women, and post-procedural patients.
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With intraosseous (IO) vascular access, patients are subjected to a minimum number of sticks, so there is less chance of creating a portal for infection, says Sean Hall, an ED nurse at Desert Island Hospital in Bar Harbor, ME. "The time which can be saved by using these devices can be lifesaving in a critical patient," he says.
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