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Everyone in the health care field has heard horror stories about patients' needs falling through the cracks when they transition from one level of care to another.
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A simple fall in a healthy person shouldn't result in multiple facial injuries, except if the patient was intoxicated, says Regina Curry, RN, an ED nurse at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. Instead, patients might break their wrist or skin their knees and hands from trying to break the fall, she says.
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Two cases from the Canadian Medical Protective Association, a mutual defense organization for 95% of Canadian physicians, illustrate the danger of patients driving home after ambulatory surgery:
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As part of its patient throughput initiative, Spartanburg (SC) Regional Health System set a goal of discharging 80% of patients by 2 p.m. and is conducting a series of Lean Six Sigma projects in an effort to reach that goal.
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A collaborative effort between Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital emergency department staff and the health system's post-acute facilities and home care agency moves patients out of the ED and directly into post-acute care, freeing up beds and improving patient throughput.
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A patient assessment tool being tested in a Medicare demonstration project is intended to standardize the information providers share as patients transition from one level of care to another.
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The American Medical Association (AMA) in Chicago in July issued a formal apology for its past history of racial inequality toward African-American physicians, and it highlighted its current efforts to increase the numbers of minority physicians and their participation in the physician membership organization.
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As the baby boomers age, medicine is allowing us to live longer, but perhaps sicker, managing chronic disease with medication and replacing parts that have broken down with a combination of medical devices and surgeries.
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The American Medical Association in Chicago at its annual meeting in June adopted policy calling for the modification of current law to allow pilot studies on financial incentives for organ donation from people who have died.
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Ethicists primarily at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia came together to pen a commentary appearing in June 26, 2008, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine calling for organ transplantation policies that would require potential organ recipients to opt-in or opt-out at the time they are listed for organs as to whether they would accept so-called "non-standard" organs.