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An ED's policy may state that reassessments should occur every 30 minutes, or that EKGs should be given within 10 minutes of the patient's arrival, but there will always be circumstances in which these timeframes aren't met.
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Jurors might be able to understand the fact that patients can't always be treated immediately in a busy ED, particularly if a plaintiff didn't have obviously life-threatening symptoms at the time.
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If a boy is brought to an emergency department after being injured in an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) accident while at a friend's house, do triage nurses wait to get in touch with the parents before treating him?
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Ryan R. Domengeaux, JD, vice president of risk management at Schumacher Group in Lafayette, LA, says, "Policies and procedures are not only driven by statutory requirements, they are also necessary to memorialize service expectations."
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If a lawsuit is filed alleging malpractice in your ED, the only thing worse for your defense than not having a policy covering an important subject might be having one but failing to adhere to it.
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Emergency physicians need to be able to treat a variety of clinical syndromes that occur in the setting of drug abuse.
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Pediatric advanced airway management is a critical skill for the emergency medicine practitioner. Safe, effective, emergent intubation can be completed with the use of rapid sequence intubation (RSI). A multitude of alternatives are available with a variety of advantages and disadvantages based on the individual clinical scenario. This article provides a comprehensive review of the process and alternatives associated with pediatric RSI.
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In this contribution from Germany, Schulz and colleagues provide an annotated, referenced table of therapeutic, toxic, and potentially fatal blood concentrations of nearly 1000 drugs and other xenobiotics (substances foreign to the body that may be ingested or otherwise reach the circulation).
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Much of the recent attention to the high cost of health care has focused on opposing political viewpoints. Less attention has been given to an equally important issue: How do health care delivery organizations reliably deliver high-value health care and, by doing this, ensure optimal patient outcomes?
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