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This study found no evidence that the use of narcotics or benzodiazepines to treat discomfort after the withdrawal of life support hastens death in critically ill patients at our center. Clinicians should strive to control patient symptoms in this setting and should document the rationale for escalating drug doses.
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Emergency personnel care for innumerable victims of domestic violence. None of these victims are more vulnerable than the infants who have been abused by their caretakers. Although signs of abuse sometimes can be very apparent, this months article reminds emergency clinicians that we must be alert to more subtle signs of abuse that can be indicators of substantial injury to infants. Though the presenting complaints and histories may be inaccurate or frankly deceptive, the physical and diagnostic findings of infants with shaken baby syndrome will assist in identifying these victims of domestic abuse.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
