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In a recent malpractice case, a widow stated that her husband presented with crushing substernal chest pain with shortness of breath, but the emergency physician (EP) testified that the chest pain occurred with cough only.
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The prescription drug abuse epidemic in this country is a serious problem with implications not only for at-risk patients, but for providers. Providers must be mindful to identify patients at risk for abuse/overdose. However, the pendulum must not swing too far, resulting in reduced access to care for those with chronic medical conditions and compliance problems with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA).
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If an ED patient is admitted to a step-down unit and has a bad outcome, a plaintiff attorney might successfully argue that the patient should have been admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) instead.
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RSV occurs primarily in the winter months in the United States and is a cause of significant morbidity and mortality, particularly in the very young and very old.
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Electronic medical records (EMRs) have quickly become the standard in most U.S. emergency departments.
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Stephanie C. Sher, Esq., an attorney with Stevens & Lee in Lancaster, PA, says that outside evaluations of an emergency department (ED)s processes can identify risk-prone practices that could result in bad outcomes and malpractice claims.
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Discharge instructions frequently play an important role as evidence in medical malpractice cases, says John J. Barton, JD, a partner in the Providence, RI, office of Barton Gilman.
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One emergency physician (EP) found himself in the position of giving orders for an emergency department (ED) patient in cardiac arrest by phone, while nurses remained in the ED to run the code, while responding to and running another code on the floor of the hospital.