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For the past two years, the ED at Avera Weskota Medical Center, a small, rural critical-access hospital in Wessington Springs, SD, has been using a new "Emergency Services Aftercare" instruction form to help patients remember vital information about the care they received and instructions to follow once they get home.
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Moving admitted patients out of the ED and into inpatient beds reduces overcrowding more than adding beds to the department does, and -- in one hospital at least -- brings in more profits, according to two studies published online in advance of the October 2008 issue of Annals of Emergency Medicine.
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It's enough of a challenge when an ED is alerted by its local EMS that victims of chemical contamination are on their way by ambulance. But when these patients arrive by car unannounced that brings your response to an entirely different level.
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ED managers are not often thought of as inventors, but David Soria, MD, chief of emergency medicine at Wellington (FL) Regional Medical Center, has created a device that has helped his department knock an average of 2-3 minutes off its triage time, which was already an impressive 10-15 minutes.
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Citing a growing body of evidence showing that patients who have had a transient ischemic attack (TIA) are at a significant risk of having a stroke within 48 hours, authors of a four-article supplement in the latest edition of the Annals of Emergency Medicine have underscored the need to diagnose and treat TIA much more quickly than previously believed.
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Medical ethics is at the center of a case in the state of North Carolina, whereby the state Department of Corrections is at odds with the North Carolina Medical Board (NCMB) over physician participation in executions.
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The above quote from an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in June demonstrates the challenges that physicians can have with certain patients who, in everyday language, refuse to give up the fight to continue with their life, even if a prognosis suggests that is not possible.
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Occasionally, reports of physician misconduct while a patient is sedated make headlines sometimes locally, sometimes nationally, and sometimes internationally.
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Editor's note: In the August 2008 issue, Medical Ethics Advisor reported on a new requirement by The Joint Commission to become effective January 2009 that hospitals monitor and correct so-called "disruptive behaviors" by health care professionals at their institutions. This month, MEA spoke with Laurie Zoloth at Northwestern University's Center for Bioethics, Science and Society. To discuss how physicians should address either incompetent or other bad behavior by other physicians.
