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Whether a claim against an emergency physician (EP) is ultimately settled, defended, or dismissed, taking an upfront approach has resulted in quicker resolution of claims, reports Ryan Domengeaux, vice-president of enterprise risk management and internal counsel for Schumacher Group, an emergency medicine practice management company in Lafayette, LA.
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Hospitals across the country are scrambling to improve patient satisfaction so that they won't be dinged by a provision in the Accountable Care Act that will put a portion of Medicare dollars at risk, based on the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Services (HCAPS) surveys.
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New systems and processes can make a big difference in trimming wait times and changing customer perceptions in the ED. However, administrators in the enviable position of being able to design a brand new ED facility have an opportunity to create patient-friendly environments that also cater to their own characteristics in terms of flow processes and volume.
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Despite continuing turbulence in the health care industry, the past 12 months have been a period of relative stability as far as compensation is concerned among leaders in the ED, according to respondents to the 2011 ED Management Salary Survey. This follows a year in which salaries finally began to inch up after several years of stagnation.
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Hospitals could potentially save millions of dollars by swapping commonly prescribed intravenous (IV) medications with their oral equivalents in patients who can safely take medications by mouth, according to a new study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD. The research, which was published in the journal Clinical Therapeutics,
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Like EDs, emergency medical service (EMS) providers have also been struggling with drug shortages in recent years.
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Emergency department managers should take note of a couple of standards that had very high non-compliance rates for the first six months of 2011, according to data released by the Oakbrook Terrace, Il-based Joint Commission.
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In addition to tracking drug shortages, the Drug Information Service at the University of Utah Healthcare in Salt Lake City, UT, has also attempted to figure out why the shortages are occurring. The underlying causes aren't all well-understood, but some of the problems are clear.
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One of the ways busy EDs are attempting to manage long wait times is by enabling patients who do not need immediate care to make an appointment to be seen in the ED one or two hours in advance.
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There was no one precipitating study or finding that prompted the Oakbrook Terrace, IL-based Joint Commission (JC) to issue a Sentinel Event Alert regarding the radiation risks of diagnostic imaging, stresses Ana Pujols McKee, MD, the JC's executive vice president and chief medical officer.
