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The hiring of physician scribes, known as "clinical information managers," has helped Saddleback Memorial Medical Center, a five-hospital system based in Laguna Hills, CA, to save a significant amount of money by avoiding the hiring of physician assistants (PAs) for its two EDs.
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The ED at Catawba Valley Medical Center in Hickory, NC, has realized annual savings in excess of $1 million with the implementation of staffing strategies that involved the virtual elimination of contract staff and overtime for nurses.
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While the response rate (4.6%) was small, the message delivered in the results of a survey by the Emergency Nurses' Association (ENA) was huge: Significant barriers still remain to compliance with National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs) in the ED.
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While a recent severe ice storm in Owensboro, KY, held most of the city in a standstill for several days, well-laid plans for just such a disaster helped keep ED staffing at adequate levels in the Owensboro Medical Health System.
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Keeping costs under control is always an important consideration for ED managers, but in these challenging economic times, it has become critical.
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In this issue: Individualization of therapy with pharmacogenetics; the rate vs rhythm debate; the FDA's Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy; FDA actions.
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The goals of this study were fourfold: 1) to increase implementation rates of evidence-based interventions that have been shown to reduce ICU mortality and morbidity; 2) to design tools to promote team communication and team building; 3) to develop prompts that could be incorporated into an ICU progress note to promote consistent use of these measures; and 4) to provide "real time"' feedback regarding progress.
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To determine whether relationships existed between the use of clinical information technology (CIT) and measures of patient outcomes, Amarasingham and colleagues conducted a cross-sectional study of urban hospitals in Texas using the questionnaire-based Clinical Information Technology Assessment Tool, which measures a hospital's level of automation based on the interactions of its physicians with the information system.
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The effects of selective digestive tract decontamination (SDD) and selective oropharyngeal decontamination (SOD; SDD without systemic antibiotics), which are measures for preventing ICU-acquired infections, on patient outcomes and microbial resistance patterns remain unsettled and controversial.
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