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Online social networking sites have fans ranging from the very young to the very old. Some physicians, including psychiatrists, are not immune to a curious peek into the lives of their patients or at least what they can find online but is that a line that should be crossed in the physician-patient relationship?
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A study of the roles and responsibilities of patients and their proxies has implications today for hospital ethics committees and associated consult services, particularly with regard to the weight given to the voice of the proxy, according to "Contracts, Covenants and Advance Care Planning: An Empirical Study of the Moral Obligations of Patient and Proxy."
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A registry that serves as a collection point for Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment known as POLST forms has collected forms from about 18,000 people in Oregon since the registry went live Dec. 3, 2009, according to Susan Tolle, MD, director of the Center for Ethics in Health Care at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) in Portland, OR, and who leads registry educational efforts.
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Flagler Hospital - St. Augustine on Florida's east coast may offer practices or lessons for other mid-size to smaller community hospitals.
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Smaller, community-based hospitals may face many of the same types of patient cases that require ethical decision-making; however, these hospitals often have fewer resources than large urban or academic centers with which to receive training in this area.
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The National Quality Forum (NQF) has endorsed two inpatient psychiatric measures focused on quality improvement in psychiatric hospitals and general hospitals with psychiatric units.
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Recognizing that ED wait times and throughput are affected by the entire hospital, the leaders at King's Daughters Medical Center in Ashland, KY, engaged all the departments that interface with the ED and slashed the rate at which ED patients leave before treatment from 5% to 0.5%.
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The nation's first senior emergency center, opened by Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, MD, is specifically tailored to meet the needs of a growing population of adults and provides care that goes beyond the typical emergency department assessment and treatment.