-
A growing number of hospitals are allowing patients to view their own medical records electronically. Does this increase liability risks for emergency staff?
-
According to Jill M. Steinberg, a health care attorney with Baker Donelson in Memphis, TN, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) would prevent an ED physician from discussing a patient's HIV status with any other person, even if that person could be potentially exposed to an infectious disease.
-
ED physicians should not disclose a patient's HIV status, except when there is a legal mandate to do so and even in this case, this is preferably done through a third party, such as a public health official, advises Matthew Rice, MD, JD, FACEP, an ED physician with Northwest Emergency Physicians of TEAMHealth in Federal Way, WA.
-
A man with chest pain tells your ED physician that he uses cocaine and is HIV-positive, then asks the physician not to tell his girlfriend who is about to enter the room.
-
[Editor's note: This column addresses readers' questions about the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). If you have a question you'd like answered, contact Steve Lewis, Editor, ED Management, Atlanta. Phone: (770) 442-9805. Fax: (770) 664-8557. E-mail:
[email protected].]
-
Recently, a patient at Northwest Medical Center in Tucson, AZ, was diagnosed with measles and ordered into isolation by her physician, but remained unisolated in the ED for more than 12 hours.
-
Well, after my erudite presentation, the attending, who happened to be a cardiologist trained in the pre-interventional era, sat back and said, "Son, remember the heart is not a chronometer."
-
In this issue: Some women with DVT may stop warfarin after six months; Vytorin and cancer; preventing recurrent stroke; and FDA news.
-
The American Heart Association reports that there are approximately 310,000 annual cases of out-of-hospital (OOH) cardiac arrest. In 20-38% of these persons, the initial rhythm is ventricular fibrillation or pulseless ventricular tachycardia (vfib/tach).
-