There are a number of significant advancements in pain management that will impact your clinical practice, including more frequent use of patient-controlled analgesia and increased use of conscious sedation.
Gastrointestinal (GI) bleed. Cancer. Myocardial infarction (MI). Constipation. These are just some of the conditions that could present as abdominal pain in ED patients.
It's a common source of frustration in many EDs: leaving patients in the waiting room until a "specialty" room is available, or placing the patient in a room that doesn't have the right equipment, which delays care. That's why many EDs are investing in mobile workstations on laptops or wheeled carts.
The minute you learn that accreditation surveyors are on site, you probably have a "wish list" of tasks that should be done immediately. At Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, OR, ED nurses created checklists for technicians, nurses, physicians, and health unit coordinators to use.
Long waits are the most common cause of patient complaints in many EDs, so why not give patients a special "thank you" when wait times are long?
