ED Management articles from March 2003

ED Management archives from March 2003

Are pediatric drug errors occurring in your ED? Act now before tragedy strikes; research reveals high rate of medication mistakes in the ED.
March 1, 2003... Executive Summary Children are at high risk for errors in the ED, and the mistakes often are due to weight-based dosing errors. * Reduce the number of drugs, concentrations, formulations, and suppliers used. * Have ED...

Use these tools to comply with patient safety goals. (Joint Commission Update).
March 1, 2003... Executive Summary Technology can help you comply with the 2003 National Patient Safety Goals from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. EDs are beginning to invest in these resources: * Bar-coding systems...

Speed up orders for inpatients held in ED. (Joint Commission).
March 1, 2003... Executive Summary You need a policy to ensure that important orders are carried out for admitted patients being held in the ED. * ED physicians should not succumb to pressure to write inpatient orders. * Transitional orders can be...

Deluged with inpatient holds? Avoid violations. (Joint Commission Update).
March 1, 2003... Executive Summary To comply with standards of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, you must provide the same level of care to inpatients held in your ED as they would receive in critical care units. *...

Work closely with coders or ED revenue may be lost. (Guest Column).
March 1, 2003... Without connectivity between ED clinical staff, business office, medical records, and compliance, your ED stands to lose significant revenue. Streamlining your ED coding and billing system isn't something you can do alone. It takes...

EMTALA Q & A.(Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act)
March 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 Staci Kusterbeck, Editor, ED...

Bentley PN, Wilson AG, Derwin ME, et al. Reliability of assigning correct current procedural terminology-4 E/M codes.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Ann Emerg Med 2002; 40:269-274. Agreement in coding of emergency charts between coding agencies was only poor to fair, and the distribution of assigned Current Procedural Terminology (CPT)-4 codes was significantly different, says this...

CE/CME questions.
March 1, 2003... For directions on how to complete this education activity, please consult the CE/CME instruction box, below left. If you have any questions about the CE/CME program, please contact customer service at (800) 688-2421 or by e-mail at...