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.
My emergency department (ED) has had an electronic medical record for the past two years. Part of that record includes a medication list that is created from past encounters and updated by the triage nurse. Because it is electronic and prints out nicely in the triage summary, it has the appearance of truth. My experience with the list is likely similar to some of yours: Patients are often taking medications not on the list and are not currently taking those that are.
This is the second part of our two-part series on complications of tubes and lines. This issue deals with nephrostomy and enterostomy tubes and urinary catheters. It offers straightforward advice about these frequent problems.
Medicare spends about $17 billion a year on hospital readmissions that could have been prevented, experts say.
Case managers at Children's Hospital Boston wrote a successful set of guidelines describing roles and responsibilities in the hospital's collaboration with home care liaisons during the discharge process.
