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A team of Canadian researchers has developed the Vancouver Chest Pain Rule, that they say may be used to identify and safely discharge emergency patients with chest pain from the emergency department, following evaluation.
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If the final outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS) rule on hospital outpatient payment services for 2006 is any indication, the coming year will be an extremely tight one economically for the nations EDs.
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Some ED managers call the system virtual beds; others prefer the terms outside waiting room, or waiting room by appointment. Whatever you choose to call it, its a no wasted real estate approach to ED management that can help you decrease door-to-doc times and increase patient satisfaction.
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Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention, and it cant get much more necessary than trying to track several thousand patients whove suddenly been transferred to your city. Thats precisely the challenge that faced the city of Houston in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
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A male physician has a well-known habit of using vulgar language and continually berating the nursing staff who all happen to be female. This behavior exposes your ED not only to high vacancy rates for nursing staff, but also significant liability risks, says Brian A. Lapps Jr., a Nashville, TN-based attorney specializing in employment law.
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A patient comes to your ED with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), the deadliest and least treatable form of stroke, which accounts for 15% of strokes and nearly half of the 164,000 stroke deaths in the United States annually. Right now, there is very little you can do for this patient, but that may change soon.
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If your ED hasnt switched to a five-level triage system yet, theres no time like the present, according to a report from the joint five-level triage task force of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA).
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Are you struggling to cut delays in getting lab test results? Lab delays can have a dramatic impact on patient flow.
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A man with a mild stomachache, a woman reporting neck pain days after a motor vehicle accident, and a teenager with an ankle injury. Would these patients be triaged as low acuity and sent to your EDs waiting room?
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Could mistakes made in your ED cause an injured elderly patient to go into fluid overload or become hypothermic? Common errors in nursing practice can be life-threatening for these patients, says Karen Hayes, PhD, ARNP, assistant professor at the School of Nursing at Wichita (KS) State University.
