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Several months ago, the two EDs of Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene, OR, began posting their waiting times on their home page (www.peacehealth.org/shmc).
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If your patient tells you he's had asthma since he was a teenager, don't assume that he must already know how to self-manage his condition.
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(Editor's note: This is the second of a two-part series on prevention of hospital-acquired infections in the ED. This month, we give strategies to improve compliance with hand hygiene, tips for cleaning the equipment you use and tell you how to determine if your patient has arrived at the ED with an infection. Last month, we covered avoiding infections when invasive procedures are performed, reducing the risk of infection with peripheral IV insertion, using alternatives to invasive procedures, giving central-line education to ED nurses, and decreasing the use of central lines and urinary catheters.)
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If a patient comes to your ED with a pre-existing infection that goes unnoticed, the insurer likely will to refuse to pay for treatment because it will presume wrongly that the condition was acquired in the hospital.
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With an expanded treatment window of 4.5 hours, more of your stroke patients are eligible for treatment with tissue plasminogen activator (tPA). Minutes still count, however.
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Fractures were the most common injury (41%) of more than 2 million elders coming to community EDs in 2006 because of fall injuries, says a new report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
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Ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) undergoing Medicare accreditation surveys under the new Conditions for Coverage (CfCs) that took effect in May 2009, are reporting that the surveys are longer than in the past, have more surveyors, and put a much stronger emphasis on infection control.
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The ICD-10-CM code set is scheduled to replace ICD-9-CM, the current U.S. diagnostic code set, on Oct. 1, 2013. While that date is in the far future, you should prepare now, coding experts warn.
