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Regardless of hospital trauma level designation, every emergency department (ED) manages patients with traumatic injury and needs to address the pain and discomfort that accompanies it.
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ED patients often don't understand important information in their discharge instructions, according to a new study, which can result in bad outcomes and needless repeat visits.
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Patients with shortness of breath are "one of the highest priority patients" for ED nurses because of their tendency to rapidly deteriorate, says Alexandra Penzias, RN, MEd, MSN, CEN, an ED educator at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, MA. "We perform a complete set of vital signs, oxygen saturation, and peak flow measurements at triage," she says.
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A young girl experiencing hallucinations presents to an ED after being evaluated at another hospital, and twice referred for psychiatric care. "Her diagnosis was, in fact, a potentially life-threatening underlying cardiac disorder. Unfortunately, that missed diagnosis is not uncommon," says Deena Brecher, MSN, RN, ACNS-BC, CEN, CPEN, a clinical nurse specialist in the ED at Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, DE.
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Women may wait longer for ECGs than men, according to a new study. Jessica Zègre Hemsey, RN, PhD, the study's lead author, says she found the findings surprising because the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association gives acquiring an initial ECG within 10 minutes of arrival to the ED a Class I recommendation.
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Although gastric tube placement is commonly performed at the bedside by ED nurses, it can result in serious complications such as misplacement of the gastric tube into the pulmonary system, resulting in respiratory distress or death, according to a December 2010 Emergency Nursing Resource (ENR) on Gastric Tube Placement Verification, developed by the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA).
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Heel and ankle pain was the only complaint of a patient being triaged by ED nurses at Edward Hospital in Naperville, IL, with no history of injury and no obvious signs of trauma or infection, when they learned an additional piece of information.
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Eye infections are common among emergency department (ED) pediatric patients and can lead to significant morbidity if not properly managed.
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Procedural sedation and analgesia (PSA) has been provided to children in the emergency department for decades. When patients are evaluated properly, and adequate equipment, personnel, and medications are utilized, effective and safe PSA is delivered by the emergency physician, whether in a university or community setting, over a wide range of ages, and with a broad selection of medications.
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Lawsuits for "loss of chance" involving ED care are increasing, reports Jennifer L'Hommedieu Stankus, MD, JD, a medical-legal consultant, former medical malpractice defense attorney, and a senior emergency medicine resident at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center in Albuquerque. "This is a tricky legal concept that is gaining in popularity, particularly for things such as failure to offer [tissue plasminogen activator] to patients with acute ischemic stroke," she says.
