ED Management articles from October 2003

ED Management archives from October 2003

EMTALA reg eases overall burden, but on-call physician issues still unclear: rule is clearer, scope narrowed to true emergency units.
October 1, 2003... Executive Summary The government's final Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) rule clarifies and simplifies many issues that have frustrated ED managers but there still are significant areas of concern. * The rule clearly...

Audio conference clarifies final EMTALA regulations, provides valuable information.
October 1, 2003... The final version of the recently proposed changes to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) takes effect Nov. 10. To provide you with critical information on the updated regulations from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid...

Highlights of the final rule include definition of ED.
October 1, 2003... The Baltimore-based Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) lists these highlights of the final Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) rule: * The new rule changes the definition of emergency department to mean any...

Blackout creates influx of patients, generator woes: few traumas, more car wrecks and vent patients.
October 1, 2003... When the lights go out, brace yourself for a surge in patients even if things seem relatively peaceful. That was the lesson learned during the blackout that recently crippled the northeastern United States. Though the crisis ended...

Support grows for more family access in ED: staffing shortage is biggest hurdle.
October 1, 2003... Very few hospitals have policies that allow family access during resuscitation and other treatment in the ED, even though research has shown that the public overwhelmingly desires it and a growing number of emergency physicians and nurses...

Physician support, formal policy key for family access.
October 1, 2003... Flexibility is the key word when developing a policy on family access, says Stephen Epstein, MD, MPP, spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians and clinical operations director at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston....

Flowcharts are basis for symptom-based tools.
October 1, 2003... Health care providers have access to plenty of flowcharts and algorithms designed to guide the treatment of patients with particular diagnoses, but many of them aren't designed for use in the ED. What good is a flowchart for pneumonia if you...

Sign up for update on EMTALA revisions.
October 1, 2003... You and your facility waited more than a year for the final revisions to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), but are they really good news? Emergency department managers and practitioners, hospital administrators, risk...

EDs need plan to contact smallpox-vaccinated staff.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... A new report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies in Washington, DC, urges EDs to create systems in which staff vaccinated for smallpox can be called up quickly in the event of an outbreak. The committee that wrote the...

CE/CME questions.(continuing education/continuing medical education)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... 1. According to the final EMTALA rule, does EMTALA apply to a facility that "during its previous calendar year, has provided at least one-third of all its outpatient visits for the treatment of emergency medical conditions on an urgent basis?"...