ED Management 2005-02-01

‘Blue man’ throws ED into divert, cause remains unknown for 9 hours

When the patient first presented at the entrance to the ED at Greenville (SC) Memorial Hospital on Nov. 9, 2004, his face was blue, with a burning sensation on his face and in his lungs. What transpired between that moment and the time the ED resumed normal functions following a nine-hour divert demonstrates the value of careful disaster planning and the sobering reality that all the planning in the world cant guarantee a flawless response.

Unknown substance: When do you shut down?

When a patient presents at your ED with exposure to a potentially hazardous, but unknown substance, under what conditions do you shut down or limit operations? And what can you do to minimize your departments downtime?

Uninsured children: An untapped revenue source?

Each day, approximately 75,000 children present for treatment in the nations EDs, and according to two recently published studies, they represent not only an opportunity to cure, but an opportunity to expand your EDs revenues as well as its social outreach to this large group of young patients.

Saving lives is more than ‘virtual’ with teletrauma

On Nov. 21, 2004, an 18-month-old baby was injured critically in a car accident with three fatalities. The baby was rushed by paramedics to the ED at Southeast Arizona Medical Center in Douglas, a small, rural town along the U.S.-Mexico border. The baby was in shock and had lost almost two-thirds of her blood from multiple injuries. She was minutes from death, and the nearest trauma center was in Tucson, more than 100 miles away.

Insist on telemedicine at your regional trauma center

If youre an ED manager at a rural health care facility, you should insist that the regional trauma center serving your areas has telemedicine facilities, advises Rifat Latifi, MD, associate professor of clinical surgery, director of surgical critical care and associate director of trauma and critical care, and telesurgery and international affairs at the Arizona Health Sciences Center in Tucson.

Paperless system solves problem of lost chart costs

Three months may not seem like a very long time to evaluate a new paperless system, but so far, so good can accurately be applied to the T-System EV being used at the department of emergency medicine at University of North Carolina (UNC) Hospitals in Chapel Hill.

‘15-30’ commitment key to reduced wait times

Dramatically reduced emergency department waiting times was one of the major reasons cited for the awarding of this years Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJ Hamilton) in Hamilton, NJ. This recognition makes RWJ Hamilton only the fourth health care facility to ever win the prestigious award.

ED Accreditation Update: If the Joint Commission surveyor doesn’t understand how your ED is compliant, what should you do?

When you have a patient in your ED who isnt breathing, you make resuscitation a priority, and worry about patient identification later. But what happens when you have an accreditation surveyor who says you absolutely cant give any medication to any patient without addressing patient identification?

ED Accreditation Update: Surveyors scrutinize patient rights compliance

Do you work on decreasing your turnaround time by faxing the delayed nurse report rather than calling upstairs? If so, is pain assessment on there? It should be, because [the surveyors] are going to look for it, says Eileen Whalen, MHA, RN, vice president of trauma, emergency, and perioperative services at University Medical Center in Tucson, AZ. Whalen spoke at the last leadership meeting of the Emergency Nurses Association.

ED Accreditation Update: Topics announced for random surveys

Random unannounced surveys conducted in 2005 by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations will focus on the following fixed areas in hospitals.

ED Management – February 1, 2005

February 1, 2005