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While only a minority of patients with asthma exacerbations require ICU admission, these patients are challenging to manage because they typically have already failed treatment in the outpatient and emergency department (ED) settings.
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Starting 4 months after publication of the ARDS Network's landmark study showing improved outcomes in patients with acute lung injury (ALI) or the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) when low-tidal-volume, lung-protective ventilation (LPV) was used, investigators at the University of Pennsylvania prospectively identified 88 patients who met the accepted American-European Consensus Conference definition of ALI-ARDS.
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ED physicians responding to "code blue" alerts on inpatient units is a common practice but one that exposes them to considerable legal risks.
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After waiting 22 hours to be transferred to another facility, a homeless man committed suicide in a Douglasville, GA, ED seclusion room. An investigation by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) found that the man had not been properly monitored by ED staff.
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By nature of their training, skills, and in some hospitals, based on their job descriptions, emergency physicians often respond to hospital "Code Blue" alerts. Not surprisingly, many patients involved in Code Blue situations have poor outcomes, and patients or their families may elect to bring medical malpractice claims against the physicians involved in the resuscitation attempts.
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In April of this year the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed changes to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) regulations that would once again significantly impact EMTALA's patient transfer rules.
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Most of us dread the chief complaint of weakness. This nonspecific symptom engenders a differential that ranges from malingering to fatal, from psychiatric to cancer. The finding of demonstrable muscle weakness helps, but then leads to a confusing set of relatively rare diagnoses.
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A new generation of physicians is reinvigorating the field of cardiac arrest research. I am grateful that two of the experts in this area have written this issue of EM Reports. After reading this, I anticipate you will place these principles into practice.
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If an emergency physician is arrested for assaulting a patient or for inappropriate sexual conduct, there is potential liability exposure for both the hospital where the ED is located and the emergency medicine (EM) group, says Thomas H. Taylor, a health care attorney at LaCrosse, WI-based Johns Flaherty.