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The case of Moses v. Providence Hospital and Medical Centers, Inc. could be the tipping point that finally puts to rest the oft-repeated mantra of the civil courts that "EMTALA is not a federal malpractice law."
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A rural hospital contacts an air medical service (AMS) provider to transfer by helicopter a patient with blunt trauma. The distance between the sending and receiving facility is 75 miles. The "Life Flight" helicopter crew receives the request at 00:00, and departs their base at 00:20. They abort the flight at 00:40 hours, 10 miles from the sending facility, because the cloud ceiling drops to 700 feet, 300 feet below the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) minimum for night flight by helicopters. The sending facility then calls another AMS provider and requests that the patient be transported to the same receiving facility.
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When an ED physician was sued for allegedly missing signs and symptoms of a subarachnoid hemorrhage, the emergency medical record (EMR) documentation that was brought into evidence didn't help matters.
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The medical literature shows that educating children and their parents about asthma can reduce return visits to the ED as well as hospital admissions, and experts say that the ED may well be the best place to provide that education.
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"Every doctor in our group tries to put themselves in the shoes of the medical staff, and ask themselves what they would want done prior to admission and how they would want their patients treated," says Ben Johnston, MD, president of the emergency physician group at Morris (IL) Hospital.
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Patients with heart attacks and other forms of chest pain are three to five times more likely to experience serious complications after hospital admission when they are treated in a crowded ED, according to a new study published online in the journal Academic Emergency Medicine.
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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2007 estimated that 17.6 million (1 in 12) adults in the United States abuse or are dependent on alcohol. Alcohol withdrawal syndrome (AWS) is a potentially life-threatening condition that can develop as a result of sudden reduction or discontinuation of alcohol use.
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After months of anticipation, The Joint Commission has released its "proposed requirements to advance effective communication, cultural competence, and patient-centered care" for field review. If approved, they will represent some significant new challenges for ED managers.
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The ED at Twin County Regional Hospital in Galax, VA, succeeded in cutting its door-to-doc time from 121 minutes to 19 minutes in just seven weeks â while annual volume was climbing from 19,000 to about 30,000 â by combining a process improvement plan designed by a health care consulting firm, the leadership of the hospital CEO, and the ED's medical director.