-
Emergency medicine experts say the lagging economy is putting additional pressure on EDs that are already stretched to the limit, and that ED managers can look forward to even greater demand from patients while financial woes will lead to staff cuts, further exacerbating the situation.
-
A lot can happen in 20 years, and certainly a lot has happened in the practice of emergency medicine both good and bad. But experts seem to agree that no single event has had more impact on the field than the passage of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA).
-
Patient flow is an issue that continues to plague ED managers as patient demand outstrips capacity. However, several creative managers and their staffs have developed successful strategies for improving flow. In this ED Management special issue, you'll hear from many of them:
-
(Editor's note: This is the first part of a two-part series on posting wait times online. In this story, we tell you how two EDs prepared to add this service. In next month's issue, we'll tell you how the EDs used a test web site to help the staff become acclimated to the new system.)
-
(Editor's note: This is the second part of a two-part series on recent reaccreditation efforts made by the staff of the chest pain center at Oregon Health & Science University Hospital in Portland. In the first installment last month, the staff discussed the STEMI alert training procedures involved. These procedures not only involve the triage nurse, but the entire staff, including the valets. This month, we look at how the staff brought the hospital rapid response team into the process, and how the acquisition of atomic clocks enabled the ED and outside resources to accurately track their response times.)
-
While telemedicine has proven successful in several ED settings, some observers have long been skeptical that it could be applied to behavioral health.
-
Because many throughput problems experienced by EDs are not caused by EDs, those managers who find themselves operating in a vacuum have little chance of success.
-
Not long ago, the ED at Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, NJ, was struggling with waiting times hovering at about four hours.
-
It was too good to last. In the 2007 ED Management Salary Survey, we noted that hospital administrators were reacting to the realities of supply and demand and showing a willingness to be more generous with salary increases.
-
The National Quality Forum (NQF) has endorsed 10 national voluntary consensus standards for hospital-based ED care, with the goal of reducing overcrowding, decreasing patient wait time, and improving quality of care.