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The Joint Commission has suspended its policy that triggers an "automatic" adverse decision if an organization fails to complete an acceptable root cause analysis in response to a sentinel event or its related measure of success within a specified time frame. The change is retroactively effective as of Jan. 1, 2010.
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The practice of emergency medicine is unique in that an emergency medicine physician acts as a gatekeeper. While treatment of a patient might be brief, initial examination and assessment often will dictate the course of the patient's treatment after admission to the hospital.
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Several years ago the security plans for the ED at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, OH, were significantly revamped. The process required strong teamwork between ED leadership and hospital security.
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Just as identify theft has been steadily increasing in the general populace, so has it grown in the medical setting, with the ED perhaps feeling the greatest impact of all.
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The quiet of your slow night shift is suddenly broken when three young adults arrive by local ambulance. All three were unrestrained victims in a single-vehicle rollover. Amid the airways, lines, tubes, radiographs, and calls to the regional trauma center, you notice that blood continues to drip from orifices and open wounds.
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Although lawsuits against nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician's assistants (PAs), often referred to as "mid-level providers" or "physician extenders," aren't very common, they typically name the supervising ED physician.
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All action in the medical malpractice arena is happening in the states; the U.S. Congress has no stomach to tackle the issue, as evidenced by its failure to include tort reform in its behemoth 2,700-page health care reform bill.
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"There are unscrupulous lawyers, some of whom are very skilled and may hope to settle for just a little bit of money," says Kelen. "But I've been at this for a while, and I am not really aware of suits that were so frivolous that they were brought just to get money."
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Have you or one of your colleagues been named in a lawsuit that seems so frivolous that it could be the poster child for tort reform? If so, that doesn't change the fact that you may be in for a life-changing experience.