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Not every patient experiencing shortness of breath needs to have definitive airway intervention such as intubation, says Sybil Murray, RN, an ED nurse at St. Anthony's Medical Center in St. Louis, MO.
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Your next stroke patient may be aware there is a drug called tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), but he or she probably won't realize how few stroke patients are actually candidates for this treatment.
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If your patient has aspirated prior to being intubated, he or she is at increased risk for ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), warns Nicole Schiever, RN, MSN, ED team leader at Riverside Medical Center in Kankakee, IL.
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When an ED physician at Scripps Mercy San Diego (CA) decided to order lorazepam to help an elderly man sleep, the ED nurse caring for the patient got a very unexpected reaction.
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If your ED patient is taking multiple medications, he or she may have no idea what they are for. "They may tell us they are taking them because they were prescribed, without knowing what the purpose is or if the dosage changed recently," says Jocelyn Cajanap, RN, ED educator at Glendale (CA) Adventist Medical Center.
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While observing an elderly woman rubbing her arm as though it was a muscle ache, which she said was from gardening work, the possibility of a heart attack didn't cross the mind of the ED nurse caring for the patient.
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If your ED patient is sedated, he or she may have an adverse reaction to medications used in the procedure, an allergic reaction, or become hypoxic from inadequate respiratory effort, warns Brad Guffin, BSN, RN-BC, CPEN, director of emergency services at Martin Memorial Medical Center in Stuart, FL.
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It's no secret that emergency medicine providers are frustrated by patients who inappropriately come to the ED for primary care, pharmaceuticals, and help with a wide range of social issues.
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With demand for ED beds surging as the nation's demographics, health care needs, and finances continue to change, a number of health systems across the country are opening stand-alone EDs freestanding centers that are staffed by emergency physicians and deliver emergency care, but are not attached to a main campus or hospital facility.
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Hospitals that want to distinguish themselves as centers of excellence in the care of heart failure (HF) have a new avenue to pursue.