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Patients who present to the emergency department (ED) more than once in a short amount of time for the same complaint or symptoms present some unique liability risks for emergency physicians (EPs), warns Kathleen Shostek, RN, ARM, CPHRM, senior consultant in the healthcare risk management and patient safety division of Sedgwick, a Memphis-based third party administrator for professional liability claims.
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The risk of an Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA) lawsuit involving a patient with psychiatric illness is low, according to a recent study.1 If emergency physicians (EPs) perform appropriate medical screening examinations, the lawsuit is rarely successful.
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Certain diagnoses have recurrently and consistently been the bane of emergency department (ED) physicians, with regard to malpractice payouts year after year. They continue to be missed, and lead to some of the larger awards. Below we present several recent typical cases to raise awareness and avoid liability.
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In 2013, an emergency department (ED) director was terminated after commenting on a patients photo, which had been posted on Facebook by an ED nurse.1 In a similar case the same year, an emergency physician (EP) was sued after posting a photo of an intoxicated patient that included comments.
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In a case related to the alleged delay in providing care to a patient, an emergency physician (EP) was accused of altering the time that he ordered certain treatments for the patient.
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Myocarditis can at times be asymptomatic and has a varied presentation; consequentially, it often goes undiagnosed and its true incidence is unknown
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The 12-lead ECG shown in the figure was obtained from a 55-year-old woman with new-onset chest pain. Many more P waves than QRS complexes are seen on the tracing. How would you interpret this ECG?
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The authors of this study in the New England Journal of Medicine evaluated participants enrolled in the Framingham Heart Study between 1971 and 1998 who reported syncopal events.
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In this retrospective study of the GUSTO-1 database, investigators compared clinical outcomes of more than 25,000 patients with acute myocardial infarction who were treated with fibrinolytic therapy in U.S. hospitals with and without coronary revascularization capability for percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty and coronary artery bypass grafting.
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A systematic approach with an understanding of the pathophysiology can help the clinician correctly diagnose and treat metabolic alkalosis, a condition that carries a high morbidity and mortality rate.