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Every year in the United States, about 1,500 people have surgical items accidentally left inside them following a surgical procedure.1 About two-thirds of these items are sponges, which can lead to pain, infection, difficulty healing, and additional surgeries.
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The impact of medical devices on the cost of health care was one of the topics addressed at this year's National Health Policy Conference, but, typical for such gatherings, no answers were clearly established.
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The accreditation survey was going well when the surveyor turned to the medical director and asked, "What would you do if the surgery center received a bomb threat or if a fire broke out right now?"
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A small but growing number of EDs are implementing self-service computer kiosks to streamline the triage process. Potential benefits may include improved patient flow and satisfaction, but what are the liability risks of this practice?
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More than half of nurses surveyed in a San Francisco hospital said they would not report for work if a influenza pandemic hit, and nearly half said they wouldn't report following a denotation of a radioactive bomb or during a smallpox attack.
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The ED physician has three obligations to the sexual assault patient, any one of which can potentially lead to liability, according to Howard A. Peth Jr., MD, JD, an attending physician in the department of emergency medicine at Lake Regional Hospital in Osage Beach, MO.
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Patient handoffs, or turning over a patient's care to another physician, are high-risk encounters in emergency medicine due to the potential for breakdowns in communication.
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