DIY Narcan

From the Chicago Tribune, emphasis added:
“Heroin addicts get overdose remedyTraining helps put treatment on streets”
Street lore holds that in case of a heroin overdose, the victim should be made to walk, placed in a cold shower or shot up with everything from salt water to milk.
But on Tuesday, a Chicago health organization tried to spread [...]

Hurricane Katrina - One Hospital’s Experience in Mississippi

From the Hattiesburg American:
Forrest General Hospital is running short of water, is rationing food and has closed its doors to everyone but staff, patients and their families.
Hospital President William Oliver said one of the biggest problems the hospital has is a shortage of water, which he said is critical because “it is used for personal [...]

Rapid Response Team in Mercy Sioux City

Excerpted from the Sioux City Journal:
Mercy Medical Center — Sioux City will begin using a Rapid Response Team this Thursday.
A Rapid Response Team can be called into action to assess a hospitalized patient who has had a significant change in clinical condition while on a non-ICU medical or surgical floor in the hospital.
“The team can [...]

Redwood Falls ER Partnerships

From the Redwood Falls Gazette, word about the collaborative relationships of one of our affiliated facilities:
Staff at the Redwood Area Hospital pride themselves on providing the right care at the right time and in the right place.
That care, however, might not always be within the walls of the local hospital.
“When patients come to the [...]

State funding supports 24-hour ER at Hawaii hospital

RE: Rural Hawaii, From Modern Physician:
Waianae (Hawaii) Coast Comprehensive Health Center received $1 million in state funding to maintain its emergency room 24 hours a day year-round. Without the grant, the not-for-profit facility would have been forced to eliminate services between midnight and 8 a.m., officials said. Established in 1972, Waianae Coast is the [...]

Chest Pain Center

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Every day, thousands of people drive past an I-94 billboard telling them that Elmbrook Memorial Hospital is Waukesha County’s first accredited chest pain center.
A billboard on I-94 for Elmbrook Memorial Hospital does not say that although the hospital can perform other treatments, it lacks a cardiac catheterization lab to treat heart [...]

Organ Donation: "Presumed Consent"

From the LA Times
Most Americans volunteer to become organ donors by affixing a sticker to their driver’s license. But that method isn’t producing enough donors to meet the nation’s profound need. More than 89,000 Americans are awaiting organ transplants — surgeries that have become highly successful at prolonging the lives of people who might otherwise [...]

The Rise of TB in Africa

A bit of a stretch, given the theme of the blog, but I thought it particularly interesting given the fact the movie “The Constant Gardener” opens this week. The film, based on the excellent le Carre’ novel, deals with a pharmaceutical scandel involving TB in Kenya. Excerpted from the Independent:
The World Health Organisation is ready [...]

Court says police may enter emergency room without warrant

An interesting development in Vermont, as reported in the Boston Globe:
Law enforcement officers may enter a hospital emergency room without a warrant when they suspect a patient was a drunken driver, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday.
The court rejected an appeal by Adam Rheaume, who was charged with drunken driving after an accident in Highgate [...]

Car Seat Efficacy

I imagine this will be rather controversial in the safety community. An excerpt from a New York Times article posted to the Freakonomics website (which supports the best selling book of the same name):
Perhaps the single most compelling statistic about car seats in the NHTSA manual was this one: ”They are 54 percent effective in [...]