If you're the off-going nurse "handing off" a stroke patient, take the oncoming nurse to the bedside for a brief neurological exam, advises Tia Moore, RN, CEN, clinical nurse educator for the ED at University of California San Diego Medical Center.
If your patient is bleeding internally, you can know this in seconds instead of waiting for blood test results to come back by using a new non-invasive test for hemoglobin, developed by Irvine, CA-based Masimo.
In this issue: The JUPITER trial causes a stir; ACP practice guideline for antidepressant use; testosterone for low libido; continued shortage of Hib vaccine; FDA Actions.
Based on a recent systematic review of the literature, clinical guidelines were developed by the American Association of Blood Banks with the goal of providing platelet transfusion thresholds for adult patients in common clinical scenarios.
In this study of administrative data from patients admitted to 421 U.S. hospitals with acute chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations, 41% received long-acting bronchodilators, which are not recommended in this setting. Comparison with patients who did not receive the long-acting agents showed no evidence for clinical or economic benefit from their use.
Although studies in animals and preliminary reports in patients with ARDS suggested that statin administration might be beneficial in patients with the syndrome, this multicenter, double-blind clinical trial showed no benefit from simvastatin by any measure examined.
Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is the third most common cardiovascular condition behind myocardial infarction and stroke, with an incidence rate of about one per 1000 person-years.1,2 Nearly 5% of the population will experience
Patients who present to the emergency department (ED) more than once in a short amount of time for the same complaint or symptoms present some unique liability risks for emergency physicians (EPs), warns Kathleen Shostek, RN, ARM, CPHRM, senior consultant in the healthcare risk management and patient safety division of Sedgwick, a Memphis-based third party administrator for professional liability claims.
Is malpractice litigation a real possibility due to an error made in the emergency department (ED) that harmed a patient?
An Ebola patient presents to an emergency department (ED) and is either misdiagnosed and discharged or is not appropriately isolated and infects others. What is the liability risk for the emergency physician (EP)?
