ED Nursing Archives – May 1, 2005
May 1, 2005
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ED is focus of new JCAHO standard: Be ready for questions about patient flow
Ten patients being held on gurneys in your EDs hallways. Four paramedics bringing in patients on gurneys, with every room full. Patients eating meals and being given baths in treatment rooms. -
Blood thinners are putting ED geriatric patients at risk
After a minor fall, an alert, neurologically responsive elderly woman was brought to an ED. She told triage nurses she was taking the anticoagulant warfarin. When the patient was brought to a treatment room, she was lethargic and less responsive. -
Do MI patients leave your ED? Know the risks
A patient with chest pain is diagnosed with gastroesophageal reflux disease, walks out of your ED, and has a myocardial infarction (MI) a week later. Could this happen in your ED? -
Know conditions that threaten psych patients
A man walks into your ED screaming and thrashing around, and he says that he hears voices. Would you assume the patient is mentally ill? -
Pediatric Corner: Do you know 3 myths about ketamine, children?
Ketamine makes children act crazy. The drug is more dangerous than other ED sedatives. Patients can get addicted from being sedated with ketamine. -
Screening protocol catches more pulmonary embolisms
If untreated, pulmonary embolism (PE) has a mortality rate of 25%-30%. Isnt that a frightening statistic? -
EDs not screening for substance abuse
Have you ever had a gut instinct that a patients injury was related to alcohol abuse, but you said nothing because you had five other patients waiting to be seen? If so, youre not alone: A new study says 27% of adult ED patients in Tennessee had unmet substance abuse needs that werent identified during their visit. -
Tip of the Month: Offer elderly reclining chairs, not gurneys
Would you like a simple way to reduce pain and increase satisfaction of elderly patients? Allow them to sit on reclining chairs instead of gurneys, suggests Scott Wilber, MD, FACEP, director of the emergency medicine research center at Summa Health System in Akron, OH. -
Web Alert: Web site helps you interpret ECGs
Myocardial infarctions, hypertrophy, electrolyte abnormalities, and arrhythmias both ventricular and supraventricular in origin. Would you be able to identify all of these abnormalities on a patients electrocardiogram (ECG)?