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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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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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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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As the number of mid-level providers (MLPs) staffing EDs increases, the number of lawsuits involving them is also 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.
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If nursing assessment conflicts with an emergency physician's (EP), the ED nurse should speak privately with the EP about this, advises Mariann Cosby, MPA, MSN, RN, LNCC, principal of MFC Consulting in Sacramento, CA. Document subjective and objective patient data, what was communicated to the EP and other providers, their response, and then the nurses' actions, she recommends.
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Imagine finding a note in your ED patient's chart from a consultant, which recommends care that you believe is totally inappropriate. Should you quietly seethe, or report it to a higher-up?
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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.
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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.
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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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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.
