ED Management articles from January 2005

ED Management archives from January 2005

Want to keep patients flowing out of the waiting room? Don't have chairs: to ease overcrowding, offer alternative locations, push primary care.
January 1, 2005... Encouraging patients not to come to your ED? Building a new ED with no waiting room? These are among the creative, and perhaps controversial, strategies adopted by two ED managers determined to address surge capacity in new and more effective...

New ED will feature wired private patient rooms: hookup also will let docs review charts, labs.
January 1, 2005... The ED patient, lying in bed in her own private room, picks up the all-in-one telephone handset and remote control beside her and calls her husband to tell him she's been in a car accident. She clicks on the 12-inch TV monitor, watches for a...

Uniform emergency codes: will they improve safety? California, NJ have systems, others may follow.
January 1, 2005... In 2001, in the wake of a tragic incident in West Anaheim (CA) Medical Center where three employees were shot to death, state investigators questioned how the gunman was able to advance to a stairwell and a hospital lobby of the medical center...

Code responses should be tailored to your facility.
January 1, 2005... The prospect of uniform codes has been floated in Wisconsin by, of all things, the local media. After a reporter in Marshfield, WI, who was covering a disaster drill at the Marshfield Clinic noted that the overhead announcement of color codes...

Atypical MI symptoms in women mean delays: EDs must raise staff awareness to reduce disparity.(Angioplasty research by University of Michigan)
January 1, 2005... A recent study by a University of Michigan cardiologist on behalf of a Michigan-wide angioplasty research group produced a sobering statistic: Of 1,551 heart attack patients who had emergency angioplasty at hospitals in Michigan, women waited...

University of MI studies: the numbers don't lie.(University of Michigan)
January 1, 2005... Two recent studies conducted at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor bring into stark relief the differences between men and women when it comes to the triage and diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction. In a study by Moscucci et al., (1)...

Falls, self-pay data are key stats in ACS report: examine length of stay by injury.(American College of Surgeons)
January 1, 2005... ED managers should note two areas of the recently released 2004 Annual Report from the National Trauma Data Bank (NTDB) of the American College of Surgeons (ACS): the aging population and falls, and the number of self-pay payments. That's...

EMTALA Q & A.
January 1, 2005... [Editor's note. This column addresses readers' questions about the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). If you have a question you'd like answered, contact Steve Lewis, Editor, ED Management, 215 Tawneywood Way, Alpharetta, GA...

Prepare your hospital for a very unusual flu season: vaccine shortages may wreak havoc.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... With the unprecedented shortage of influenza vaccine this flu season, hospitals are scrambling to prepare for what may be a record number of flu patients presenting to their already overcrowded EDs and for staff shortages due to record...

CE/CME questions.
January 1, 2005... 19. Which of the following vehicles did the ED at Lenoir Memorial Hospital use to educate the public about the appropriate use of emergency medical services? A. Billboards B. Newsletters C. Television interviews D. All of the...

Initial evaluation of the traumatized eye.
January 1, 2005... Eye injuries" present a significant challenge to emergency personnel Patient stress and coexisting periorbital findings can complicate any evaluation, and many of the signs of serious injury may be quite subtle. Because the majority of eye...