-
It is not uncommon for a patient or family member who is unhappy with the services he or she receives in the ED to make threatening statements about filing lawsuits, says Justin S. Greenfelder, JD, a health care attorney with Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs in Canton, OH.
-
Simply hearing the words, "I am going to sue you ... can send shock waves up your spine," says Michelle Myers Glower, RN, MSN, LNC a health care consultant based in Grand Rapids, MI.
-
Emergency physicians (EPs) are often faced with caring for the impending or actual cardiac arrest patient.
-
If you're taking a verbal order from an emergency physician, remember that there is always a potential for miscommunication, warns René Borghese, RN, BAS, unit educator in the ED at Duke University Medical Center. "This is the primary reason we utilize them only when absolutely necessary," she says.
-
If your patient is abusing narcotic pain medications, he or she isn't likely to come out and tell you this. However, ED visits involving misuse or abuse of pharmaceuticals nearly doubled during the past five years, according to a new report, totaling about 1.2 million visits in 2009, compared to 627,000 in 2004.
-
ED nurses at St. Elizabeth Healthcare Florence (KY) have cared for several healthy patients under age 35 with no history or family history of heart disease, who were having a cardiac event, reports Ben Brooks, RN, BSN.
-
Have you just placed a urinary catheter in an ED patient? If so, possible complications include urosepsis, septicemia, trauma to the urethra or bladder, and urethral perforation, warns Mark Goldstein, RN, MSN, EMT-P I/C, clinical nurse specialist at the Emergency Center at Beaumont Hospital in Grosse Pointe, MI.
-
A patient who is actively engaged in his or her own care can provide a wealth of information to a busy ED provider who lacks ready access to medical-record information.
-
Sumner Regional Medical Center in Gallatin, TN, offers good evidence that quick-turnarounds are indeed possible when you have motivated staff.
-
To say our specialty has a full plate is an understatement. We are facing down a number of issues that are guaranteed to transition us to a new world.