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Several EDs across the country have initiated policies to encourage patients who don't face "true" emergencies to seek care elsewhere in the community and to find "medical homes," but none have been met with the outrage that descended upon the University of Chicago Medical Center recently.
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The Joint Commission has released a monograph titled "Measuring Hand Hygiene Adherence; Overcoming the Challenges," to help health care organizations target their efforts in measuring hygiene performance.
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Among the most challenging standards from The Joint Commission for the first half of 2008 was standard IM.6.50 "Designated qualified staff accept and transcribe verbal or telephone orders." According to the organization, 40% of hospitals were not in full compliance.
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(Editor's note: Janiak has served as an emergency medicine medico-legal consultant for more than 30 years, and he has reviewed hundreds of malpractice cases. In the process, he has recognized common patterns and mistakes that emergency physicians make that set them up to be sued. With his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, Janiak points out the following potential mistakes and ways that lawsuits are created.)
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In this issue: Aspirin dose and cardioprotection; uncovering modafinil's abuse potential; proton-pump inhibitors and clopidogrel; FDA actions.
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In the application of non-invasive ventilation (NIV) in the management of patients with acute respiratory failure, Fraticelli and colleagues at Henri Mondor Hospital in Créteil, France, sought to determine the clinical effects of using interfaces with varying dead space and other features.
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Patients with acute coronary syndrome present one of the most common admission diagnoses in the intensive care unit. For non-cardiology intensivists, the ever-evolving treatment algorithms present a challenging body of literature on which to remain current.
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Editor's Note: The alpha2-receptor agonist dexmedetomidine (Precedex®), introduced for perioperative and procedural sedation and other short-term applications, is approved by the FDA for use in the ICU, although the package insert emphasizes that this approved use is for not more than 24 hours.
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While ICU clinicians understand that prognostic uncertainty is a normal part of critical care, it is unclear if surrogates hold similar views. In this study, Evans et al conducted semi-structured face-to-face interviews with 179 surrogates who had an adult patient in the ICU.