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A patient treated and discharged for pneumonia several times at an ED is later diagnosed with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Could the ED be successfully sued for failing to test for human immunodeficiency virus?
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What if the emergency physician (EP) strongly believes a patient needs to be admitted, but a consultant gives a recommendation over the phone to discharge the patient?
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Have you ever made an honest mistake that a family member caught before you did, or given the wrong dose of a medication? "These scenarios, unfortunately, can make the news, and they make us look careless," says Michelle Myers Glower, RN, MSN, LNC, a health care consultant based in Grand Rapids, MI. "But how we handle them can make or break us."
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The number of lawsuits involving mid-level providers (MLPs) in the ED "seems to have skyrocketed in the last few years," according to Michael Blaivas, MD, FACEP, FAIUM, professor of emergency medicine at Northside Hospital Forsyth in Cumming, GA. "There are multiple scenarios that result in successful suits, and there is a common theme among them."
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A 28-year-old man was given an immediate EKG when he told ED nurses at Parkland Health & Hospital Systems in Dallas that he felt like someone was "holding my chest tight, like a band around my chest."
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As an ED nurse was inserting a urinary catheter in a young man who had been critically injured in a motor vehicle collision, the trauma surgeon was watching closely.
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If a patient's only complaint is dizziness, stroke may not be the first thing you think of, but patients with vertebral artery occlusion may present this way, says Karen Bergman, RN, neuroscience coordinator at Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo, MI.
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When a woman reported depression, migraines, and slurred speech over a period of months to Casie McMaster, RN, an ED nurse at St. Anthony's Hospital in St. Louis, MO, she reviewed her patient's home medications.
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When patients with shortness of breath received either a partial or a full standing order set, their median treatment time decreased by 40 minutes, according to a study done at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore.
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A five-year-old boy with a fever and rash was about to be admitted to the in-patient pediatric unit at Children's Hospital Boston for dehydration and infection.