ED Management 2004-08-01

Lawsuits imply EMTALA requires EDs to admit all uninsured patients

A series of 27 lawsuits aimed at organizations controlling about 250 nonprofit hospitals in 15 states and the Chicago-based American Hospital Association (AHA) have shone the spotlight on the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) and its requirements concerning the treatment and admission of uninsured and underinsured patients.

How to boost satisfaction rates: A tale of two EDs

In 1997, the ED at Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne, IN, was in the 45th percentile in South Bend, IN-based Press Ganey Associates satisfaction rankings. That same year, Southern Ohio Medical Center in Portsmouth, languished in the ninth percentile.

Lab order to results in 16 minutes? You heard right!

There was a long history of frustration over lab specimen turnaround time but not anymore. Thanks to a successful Six Sigma initiative, turnaround time for the EDs criteria draws (draws based on specific patient criteria that indicate lab work will be needed) has dropped from about 46 minutes to 16 minutes.

Targeting individual RNs improves performance

The ED at North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale, MN, has been able to increase the percentage of criteria blood draws from 31% to 41% one of the keys to slashing lab specimen turnaround time. But since only a specific percentage of patients meet the criteria at any given time, how is that possible?

Are you liable if your staff abuse a patient?

Denver Health Medical Center is being sued by a patient who claims that two hospital workers took a photograph of his genitals while he lay unconscious in their ED last February. Could a hospital be held liable for such accusations?

Situation critical for call panels: Is there a cure?

A large number of emergency medicine observers agree that the inability to fully staff ED call panels has reached a critical point. Why has the problem become so serious?

Call panels: Should your ED take the do-it-yourself route?

If youre having difficulty staffing your call panel, there are two options: You can institute a new approach internally, or contract with a company such as Emergency and Acute Care Medical Corp. (EA) in Rancho Santa Fe, CA, a management services organization with an independently contracted medical group providing call panel and stipend solutions and programs.

Want smoother transfers? Eliminate the guesswork!

At Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center, for example, several years of ongoing meetings with community physicians created awareness of how the facilitys ED handled transfers. It also engendered valuable interpersonal relationships among medical professionals, while the facility improved communications through centralized phone and computer transfer capabilities.

Get your ED ready for influenza season

The annual impact of influenza on the United States is staggering: 10% to 20% of the population will get the flu. Some 36,000 people will die, and 114,000 will be hospitalized.

ED Accreditation Update: EDs must offer inpatient level of care to admitted patients, new Joint Commission standard says

As of Jan. 1, hospitals accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations must meet a new standard that has a higher requirement for care given to admitted patients in the ED, and CEOs will depend on ED managers to lead the effort in complying with this standard.

ED Accreditation Update: Is your ED ready to comply with patient safety goals?

The newly announced national patient safety goals, which are expected to receive special emphasis at accreditation surveys, require EDs and other departments of the hospital to accurately and completely reconcile medications across the continuum of care.

ED Management – August 1, 2004

August 1, 2004