Doctors, Federal Health Officials Search for Solutions to Emergency Room Crowding

From ABC News
On Friday, June 22, nearly a year after the Institute of Medicine issued three reports chronicling a rise in numbers of emergency patients and a decline in the number of emergency facilities nationwide, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform listened to testimony from five physicians in a hearing titled “The Government’s [...]

Study: Iowa quickest in US on ER visits

From Yahoo News:
Iowans may want to think twice before complaining about long waits in the emergency room. According to a national study, Iowa is the quickest place in the country to get emergency medical attention — the average visit lasting two hours, 18 minutes.
The national average is three hours, 42 minutes, according to a study [...]

Update on Standard MM 4.10 in the Emergency Department (ED)

From the Joint Commission:
Effective April 6, 2007, the interim action was suspended for Standard MM.4.10, Element of Performance 1 that required a retrospective review of all medication orders in the Emergency Department (ED) by a pharmacist when a prospective review was not conducted. The interim action was implemented on January 1, 2007 for EDs in [...]

The 1000 lb Ambulance

From Medgadget:
Obese folks living within the Calgary region of O’Canada now have access to an ambulance that is designed for patients up to 1000 lbs (450 kg) in weight. According to the article, obesity is not only a problem in Canada, but in the rest of North America as well.
The upgrades to the ambulance [...]

Physicians who talk about themselves cut into visit’s valuable time

From MSNBC:
Too much personal talk by doctors can be bad medicine, according to a study published on Monday in which U.S. researchers sent actors posing as new patients to see doctors in secretly recorded visits.
Doctors often wasted time in what already may have been short visits and stifled the flow of information from patients by [...]

Standard of Care Remains a Moving Target in Medical Malpractice Cases

From MedPage Today:
Courts in 21 states adhere to a local or community standard of care in medical malpractice cases, slowing implementation of evidence-based, resource-based, nationwide standards.
So said Michelle Huckaby Lewis, M.D., J.D., of Johns Hopkins and Georgetown University, and colleagues in a commentary in the June 20 issue of the Journal of the American [...]

List compares hospitals’ heart-related death rates

From USA Today:
In a bid to improve hospital performance, the federal government on Thursday posted online its first comparison of heart attack and heart failure death rates from more than 4,000 hospitals nationwide.

Hospital’s ’scribes’ help them focus more on patients, less on paperwork

From SignOnSanDiego:
Doctors struggling to keep pace with the growing volume of patients who pass through Tri-City Medical Center’s emergency room are getting help from an unlikely source: college students.
The Oceanside hospital has hired undergraduate pre-med students and recent graduates as “scribes” to document physician notes and orders in the emergency room – work that [...]

TabletKiosk™ Greets Patients in ER

From Medgadget:
When a patient arrives at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, he or she is now greeted by a computer, The Dallas Morning News is reporting. This electronic processing of patients at Parkland was implemented by the hospital’s own IT department with the help of Sand Dune Ventures Inc., a Torrance, CA maker of TabletKiosk™.
The [...]

Doctors urged to make good first impression

From Reuters:
Doctors should know that when meeting a new patient for the first time there is no second chance to make a good first impression, researchers said on Monday.
Almost all patients want to be greeted by name when seeing a doctor for the first time and want to shake hands, a survey of patients found. [...]