ED Management articles from July 2003

ED Management archives from July 2003

Are you losing nurses due to violence in your ED? You should take action now! Emergency nurses at high risk for assaults, study says.
July 1, 2003... If you're having trouble retaining and recruiting ED nurses, it may be time to closely examine your violence prevention strategies. The University of Alberta (Canada) Faculty of Nursing surveyed more than 9,000 nurses. The survey revealed that...

New screening guidelines cut hours off delays.
July 1, 2003... If a chronic schizophrenic with recurrent hallucinations or a suicidal college student comes to your ED, what comes to mind as the most immediate need? Is it an immediate mental health consultation or a time-consuming assortment of expensive...

Include your community in disaster planning.
July 1, 2003... You may have an effective, well-rehearsed disaster plan, but have you included the community in your planning? A report from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations makes it clear that surveyors will be looking for...

New tool avoids sticking patients 10-15 times. (Tech Watch).
July 1, 2003... It happens in every ED: Patients with difficult line access are stuck multiple times--some as many as 10-15 times--in an attempt to access an intravenous (IV) line. "Eventually, someone gets a small IV that works, or a central line is...

Save up to $700,000 by making this change. (Cost-Saving Tip).
July 1, 2003... You can dramatically reduce costs by not routinely ordering coagulation studies for all patients with acute coronary syndromes, says Charlene Babcock Irvin, MD, FACEP, assistant vice chief for the Department of Emergency Medicine at St. John...

EMTALA: q & a.(Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act )
July 1, 2003... [Editor's note: This column is part of an ongoing series that will address reader questions about the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). If you have a question you'd like answered, contact Greg Freeman, 4880 Lower Roswell Road,...

Act now to prepare for new E/M coding regs.
July 1, 2003... Your reimbursement will change dramatically when nationally uniform facility assessment criteria are implemented by Medicare, probably in January 2004, predicts Caral Edelberg, CPC, CCS-P, president of Medical Management Resources in...

Report: EDs are at high risk for dosage errors.
July 1, 2003... More dosage errors are made in the ED than other hospital departments, and fewer potential dosage errors are caught before they occur, according to a new report from the Rockville, MD-based United States Pharmacopeia (USP), which analyzed...

CE/CME questions.
July 1, 2003... 19. Which of the following is recommended to prevent violence in the ED, according to Marc Augsburger, RN, BSN, BC, manager of the emergency care center at Covenant HealthCare? A. Wait until a violent incident has occurred to alert...