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COPYRIGHT 2006 A Thomson Healthcare Company
Staffing is one element of safety, quality trials
As outlined in the Institute of Medicine report, there are three major issues that are hindering patient safety and quality in our nation's EDs, says Mary M. Jagim, RN, BSN, FAEN, internal consultant for emergency preparedness planning at MeritCare Health System in Fargo, ND. Jagim, who until a month ago was the manager of the MeritCare emergency center, identifies these issues as environment, staffing, and competency.
"Overcrowding and boarding issues make the ED a place in which errors would easily occur, whether they are medical errors, missing changes in a patient's condition, or a misdiagnosis because some X-ray or lab was not read in the chaos, or someone left before they could read it," she says. "It's a recipe for disaster."
The problem with staffing, she says, is that appropriate staff levels are not...
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