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With our economy in shambles, and July unemployment at 9.2% nationally just short of the all-time high of 10.81% and way off the mark of the all-time low of 3.31% fewer and fewer ED patients are insured, and it's a significant challenge to manage the resulting uptick in ED visits.
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When it's typical for patients to wait four hours or more to see an emergency physician, and your leave-without-being-seen (LWBS) rate is pushing 10%, you know it's time to rethink the whole process.
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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has made it clear that cell phone applications that aid in clinical decision-making or act as medical devices will soon be subject to the strictest Class II and Class III regulations.
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Most accredited hospitals have been reporting ORYX performance data to the Joint Commission (JC) on a monthly basis since 2002.
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This is the second of a two-part series on liability risks involving ordering of diagnostic tests in the ED. This month, we report on possible lawsuits for future cancers, strategies if patients threaten to sue because a test wasn't ordered, and liability risks specific to pediatric patients.
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The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Florida's cap does not violate the federal Constitution, but punted whether the cap violates the Florida Constitution to the Florida Supreme Court.
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After the actress Natasha Richardson died in 2009 from an epidural hematoma that media reports emphasized could have been diagnosed with a head CT scan, EPs were flooded with requests for the test, even for patients with very minor head injuries, recalls John Burton, MD, chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Carilion Clinic in Roanoke, VA.
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The "second-look EKG" is a good risk-management strategy, according to Robert Broida, MD, FACEP, chief operating officer of Physicians Specialty Limited Risk Retention Group in Canton, OH. If you are the treating physician for any patient with chest pain being considered for discharge, it is a good practice to have another physician review and initial the EKG before discharge, he advises.
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Pulmonary contusions are a frequent complication of chest trauma and may have serious morbidity and mortality associated with them. Early recognition, aggressive management, and a targeted diagnostic approach may optimize outcomes for these patients. The authors present a concise, comprehensive review of the current status of identification and management of pulmonary contusions.
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Abdominal pain with vomiting is a common presenting complaint to the emergency department (ED) in infants. In the majority of cases, the patient's symptoms come from a benign cause such as gastroenteritis. However, it remains essential for the emergency physician (EP) to thoroughly understand the differential diagnosis of abdominal pain and vomiting in infants, particularly identifying those causes requiring surgical intervention.