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Surviving Hurricane Katrina was a life-changing experience. It also was a transformational experience for hospitals, which revamped emergency plans and even changed building design.
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It was an eerily familiar scenario: A huge storm barreled through the Gulf of Mexico with New Orleans in its sights. Hospitals began implementing their disaster plans, calling in employees who would remain on duty throughout the storm. Days later, yet another huge storm entered the Gulf, again threatening the region and straining health care resources.
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Sometimes the routine becomes routinely ignored. That is what had happened at North General Hospital in New York City with annual health assessments.
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"Hello. I'm Dr. John Jernigan from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Your doctor has chosen to admit you to this facility because you need high-quality medical care. The health care providers here want to do everything they can to help you get well and to avoid complications.
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Every employee who gets a flu shot at McLeod Health in Florence, SC, walks away with a $20 bill. Yes, you heard that right. Twenty bucks for rolling up their sleeve and getting the vaccine that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The Joint Commission, and others say will help prevent the spread of flu to vulnerable patients.
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One after the other, videotapes on primetime news showed a patient, Esmin Green, being ignored by ED staff as she lay dying on a waiting room floor in a Brooklyn psychiatric hospital after waiting almost 24 hours for a bed. What impact will this "horror story" case, and others like it, have on ED litigation?
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A patient, Scruggs, presented to Danville (VA) Regional Medical Center (DRMC) ED about 2 a.m. complaining of two days of prolonged dry heaves. He was triaged in the usual manner, prioritized as "non-urgent," and instructed to wait in the waiting area until his name was called. The court pointedly noted that the triage nurse failed to document the patient's "diabetic ketoacidosis condition or his history of diabetes."
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Many hospitals have been cited by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) for failure to provide an appropriate medical screening examination for mental health patients, or for discharging these patients in an unstabilized emergency medical condition, notes Barbara E. Person, JD, an attorney at the Omaha, NE-based law firm Baird Holm.