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In this issue: Side effects of finasteride; new ruling on pharmaceutical companies paying generic manufacturers; and FDA actions.
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This blinded, randomized, multicenter trial compared the colloid solution low-molecular-weight hydroxyethyl starch (HES 130/0.42) with the crystalloid solution Ringer's acetate for the treatment of severe sepsis.
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Coquin and colleagues evaluated the accuracy of noninvasive total hemoglobin measurement using a widely marketed pulse oximeter in patients admitted to the ICU with acute gastrointestinal (GI) hemorrhage.
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The purpose of this study was to measure light levels in patient rooms, and also to determine if there were any relationships between greater light levels and mortality, length of stay, ventilator-free days, and amount of medication.
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Measuring the number of ED malpractice claims that are avoided by calling patients post-discharge is difficult, acknowledges Jeanie Taylor, RN, BSN, MS, vice president of risk services for Emergency Physicians Insurance Company (Epic) in Roseville, CA. "It is hard to measure what did not occur, so the effectiveness of callback programs from a claims perspective is largely anecdotal," she says.
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The most significant legal risks in the ED are not those associated with boarding patients or high-acuity traumas, but rather, those associated with relatively stable patients with undifferentiated diagnoses, according to an analysis of malpractice cases occurring from 2006 to 2010 from Crico Strategies' Comparative Benchmarking System database.
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Whether an emergency physician (EP) has deviated from the accepted standard of care on the basis of timeframe depends on the facts of the individual case, says Robert D. Kreisman, JD, a medical malpractice attorney with Kreisman Law Offices in Chicago.
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If the hospital isn't named in a medical malpractice lawsuit, an emergency physician (EP) defendant can sometimes take advantage of the "empty chair" defense strategy, says Joseph P. McMenamin, MD, JD, FCLM, a partner at Richmond, VA-based McGuireWoods LLP and a former practicing EP.
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In one case involving the death of a 9-year-old girl from a reaction to metoclopramide, misdiagnosed as gastroenteritis, the patient and her 16-year-old brother were called on in the ED to interpret for their Vietnamese-speaking parents.
