Articles Tagged With:
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Obstetrics Offers Many Opportunities for Quality Improvement
Maternal and fetal morbidity are ongoing concerns, and hospitals are using an array of evidence-based strategies to improve quality of care, from simple process changes to high-tech virtual reality simulations of obstetric emergencies.
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Researchers Announce Exciting Progress in the Battle Against Huntington’s
Drug under development demonstrates efficacy against disease’s underlying mutation.
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Evidence That Working ‘Bare Below the Elbows’ Protects Patients
A study using two mannequins and a surrogate DNA marker for Clostridium difficile showed that workers in long sleeves were more likely to contaminate a subsequent patient than workers wearing short sleeves.
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Antibiotic Stewardship Requires Hospitalwide Commitment
Hospitals can play an important role in addressing one of the most urgent public health problems today: the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials. An effective antibiotic stewardship program requires significant commitment from top executive levels down to the bedside.
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Community Finds Unique Ways to Bring Case Management to the Frontier
A care coordination program that uses care facilitators has helped to improve care coordination and reduce ED use among a frontier, or very rural, population.
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Strategies for Preventing Workplace Sexual Harassment
Healthcare organization leaders can do a great deal to prevent sexual harassment — or, at least, to stop it as soon as it occurs. Sexual harassment prevention starts with an organization’s leadership paying attention and emphasizing the importance of workplace safety.
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Nurses, Other HCWs Report High Levels of Sexual Harassment
For the past year, sexual harassment has made headlines, sometimes daily, as celebrities and politicians deal with accusations. Research shows that nurses and other healthcare workers also experience sexual harassment, abuse, and bullying on the job.
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Did ED Patient Threaten Violence? EP Might Have Legal Duty to Warn
EPs might have a legal “duty to warn” individuals if a patient threatens violence against them, depending on their state statute. EPs are shielded from allegations of breach of confidentiality if they warn someone of a threat. Importantly, EPs can be held liable if their failure to warn leads to a violent act.
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Psych Patients Elope or Are Discharged? Either Way, It’s a Wrongful Death Lawsuit
If psychiatric patients are discharged or elope from the ED and harm themselves or others, a wrongful death lawsuit is possible. To reduce risks, EPs can document that there was no evidence of homicidal or suicidal ideation at the time of the ED visit, contact a psychiatrist to support the decision to discharge, keep the patient secure until the evaluation is complete, and take reasonable precautions when patients are transported to another facility.
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Liability for EP if Admitted Patient’s Condition Deteriorated
EPs are not absolved of legal responsibility for admitted patients who remain in the ED while waiting for an inpatient bed to become available. Juries rely on documentation to determine what information was communicated to the admitting physician. Providing treatment to admitted patients can lead to the EP being held to a higher standard of care. Undocumented interactions are problematic for the defense.