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The shift from handling verification, eligibility, and collection issues on the front end - before or during registration - is continuing, and this is good news for patient access.
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You are working one evening, and the EMS dispatch center calls. The ambulance is bringing in a 35-year-old male motor vehicle collision victim who is unresponsive and has a BP of 80 palpable. So, what happens next in your emergency department? Who do you assemble? What equipment do you gather? Do you call the blood bank and the operating room?
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The dangers of sleep deprivation and fatigue can no longer be ignored.
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In a series of questionable decisions, a California federal court allowed a plaintiff to bring a "failure-to-screen" claim under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) against a hospital for what was really an ordinary state malpractice claim for "failure to diagnose," and then held that California's $250,000 damages cap wouldn't apply because the EMTALA claim was not a "professional negligence" claim as contemplated by the state's tort reform law - the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA).
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This story concludes a two-part series on liability risks of boarding admitted patients in the ED. This month, we report on the problem of EDs providing an unequal level of care compared to what patients would have gotten on inpatient units.
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Emergency departments pour a lot of resources into compliance with the Joint Commission's standards, including the National Patient Safety Goals. But is there any evidence that compliance with The Joint Commission standards decreases liability risks for an emergency department?
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In order to achieve new aggressive blood pressure goals in hypertensive patients, drug combinations are often used. But which combinations are superior for preventing cardiovascular events?
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Invasive coronary angiography (ICA) is the gold standard for assessment of epicardial coronary artery disease. There is much interest in non-invasive alternatives to ICA to assess coronary arteries in order to eliminate the complications associated with arterial access and catheter manipulation during ICA.
