Articles Tagged With:
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Statins After an MI: Does it Happen?
Following a hospitalization for coronary heart disease (CHD) or acute coronary syndrome (ACS), randomized trials demonstrate that high-intensity atorvastatin is more effective than either placebo or low- to moderate-intensity therapy with either pravastatin or atorvastatin.1-3 Based on this evidence, the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association guidelines recommend high-intensity therapy in cases of an acute cardiac event, and recommend therapy be initiated before discharge.
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A Guide to When and How to Stop CPR
Although health care providers undergo hours of training and re-certification to provide resuscitative efforts for patients in cardiopulmonary arrest, few are given guidance in terms of when and how to stop it.
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Post-ICU Stress Symptoms Associated with Increased Acute Care Service Utilization
Over the past two decades, advances in critical care have resulted in more patients surviving to hospital discharge, but these successes are attenuated by several sequelae of critical illness, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).1 Risk factors for and the health care ramifications of these disorders are poorly understood. Given this, Davydow and colleagues aimed to investigate whether PTSD symptoms in the acute (< 1 month) ICU hospitalization period and PTSD and depressive symptoms at 3 months post-ICU were risk factors for future hospitalizations and emergency department (ED) visits.
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Nasal Screening for MRSA: The New Basis for De-escalation of Empiric Antibiotics?
Although nasal screening for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a widely accepted method for infection control, the relationship between nasal carriage and development of MRSA lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) is not well studied. Tilahun and colleagues sought to determine the association between MRSA nasal swab results and MRSA LRTI in a medical ICU. In this single-site, retrospective cohort study, 165 patients were diagnosed with pneumonia and had both nasal swabbing and culturing of respiratory specimens within 24 hours of admission.
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Inpatient and Outpatient Care Providers: Why Can’t We Just Work Together?
Many problems occur after a patient is discharged that are a direct result of poor coordination of care between hospitalists and primary care providers (PCPs). These issues include, but are not limited to, missed test results, medication errors, inadequate follow up, and harm to the patient. PCPs are frequently unaware that their patient was hospitalized and they often do not receive a copy of the discharge summary. The authors of this paper did a qualitative study to analyze the barriers and solutions to care coordination between hospitalists and PCPs in North Carolina.
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Clear Documentation of EP’s Thought Process Makes Malpractice Suit Unappealing to Plaintiff Attorneys
Many times, a careful review of the emergency department (ED) chart convinces plaintiff attorneys not to sue — even if at first glance, the malpractice case against the emergency physician (EP) sounded rock solid.
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“If the EP Had Only Told Me, I Would Have …
When both the emergency physician (EP) and consultant are jointly named in a malpractice suit, the case often turns on whether a certain piece of information was conveyed.
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Could EP Defendant Be Held to Inappropriate Standard of Care?
Virtually every malpractice lawsuit against an emergency physician (EP) involves a conflict over whether the standard of care was met. “Breach of the standard of care is one of four things that must be proven in order to win a medical malpractice lawsuit; appropriate medical care would negate a medical malpractice claim,” explains William Sullivan, DO, JD, FACEP, an EP at University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago and a practicing attorney in Frankfort, IL.
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Is Parent Signing Child Out AMA in Your ED? Hostility Can Lead to Lawsuit
If a parent wishes to sign out a child against medical advice (AMA), emergency physicians (EPs) may become offended, annoyed, hostile, or appear unconcerned. These reactions increase the risk of a malpractice suit being filed in the event of a bad outcome, warns Laura Pimentel, MD, vice president/chief medical officer at Maryland Emergency Medicine Network in Baltimore, MD.
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Surprising New Data on Closed ED Claims: Incomplete Assessments Are Factor in Many Med/Mal Suits
Physician reviewers at The Doctor’s Company, a Napa, CA-based medical malpractice insurer, recently analyzed 332 emergency medicine claims that closed from 2007 to 2013.