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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.
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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.
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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.
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David M. Solomon, RN, BSN, CEN, EMT-P, patient care coordinator in the ED at Catawba Valley Medical Center in Hickory, NC, says that usually, medications for boarded patients have to be ordered from the pharmacy.
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When a man with a known history of seizures came to the ED at the University of California San Diego Medical Center very agitated, diaphoretic, and yelling, ED nurses first thought he was having a schizophrenic breakdown, says Tia Valentine, RN, CEN, ED clinical nurse educator.
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If a patient presents visibly intoxicated and announces his or her intent to harm others, it's easy to make the decision to involve security. However, any ED patient or visitor has the potential to become physically violent, warns Gordon Lee Gillespie, PhD, RN, PHCNS-BC, CEN, CCRN, CPEN, FAEN, assistant professor and director of population-focused care at University of Cincinnati (OH) College of Nursing.
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Dog-bite injuries resulting in hospital admissions have increased drastically in recent years, from 5100 cases in 1993 to 9500 in 2008, according to a recent report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
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Recent outbreaks of measles, mumps, and pertussis prompted this issue. Just this past month, outbreaks of measles were reported in California and Florida. These diseases were thought to be disappearing, but now many are returning. And the emergency physician will be called upon to diagnose and treat them. "Childhood" diseases are now seen in adults, often with more serious morbidity and mortality.
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Drowning is a major global public health problem. In 2000, the World Health Organization reported drowning as the second leading cause of unintentional death worldwide.
