-
ED managers agree that overcrowding and gridlock, while often manifested most graphically in their department, are decidedly hospitalwide issues, and the experience of Sarasota (FL) Memorial Hospital seems to prove their point.
-
As a small (10,000 visits a year) department, the ED at Boone (IA) County Hospital is fortunate it doesn't have to deal with the long waiting times that face many other EDs. But that fact alone does not necessarily guarantee high patient satisfaction levels.
-
Below are suggested actions to help prevent patient harm related to the implementation and use of health information technology (IT) and converging technologies.
-
Imagine a new disease strikes your community that significantly increases mortality rates, particularly in critically ill patients. This same disease causes patients to suffer more pain, greater heart damage from a myocardial infarction, and, if they are elderly, increases the chance they will be discharged to a nursing home. Such a disease clearly would grab the public's attention, and even in these difficult times, money would be diverted to find a cure. This problem exists today in many of our communities: crowding.
-
-
-
A patient is mistakenly given tenectaplase, an investigational drug, due to it being a "look-alike," with proper protocols not followed.
-
If a patient comes to your ED with a fractured wrist, you'd probably triage them as low acuity based solely on their chief complaint.
-
Children under 2 years old with asthma are more likely than other children to return to the ED within seven days, according to a recent analysis of 4,228 visits.1
-
Point-of-care tests done by ED nurses at triage or the patient's bedside are increasing "both in terms of use and diversity," according to Darlene Matsuoka, RN, MN, CEN, CCRN, ED clinical nurse educator at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
