NQF Standards

From Modern Healthcare:
The National Quality Forum has added 10 standards for hospital-based emergency department care, 17 perinatal-care measures, eight outpatient-imaging efficiency measures and two hospital readmission measures to the group’s national voluntary consensus standards program. The standards are intended to improve accountability, efficiency and appropriateness, and quality across the various areas of care.
In addition, the [...]

Medical Practices: Increasing Costs Outpacing Revenue

From the MGMA:
Compounding economic pressures created by declining reimbursement and crushing administrative burdens, operating costs rose faster than revenue in many medical group practices in 2007, according to the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) Cost Survey: 2008 Reports Based on 2007 Data. MGMA data indicate that over the past decade, operating expenses have risen from [...]

More on ED Wait Times from ACEP Symposium

From the Wall Street Journal Health Blog:
You know those signs at amusement parks that tell you how long the wait is for the big roller coaster? As it turns out, they tend to tell you the wait is a little longer than it’s really likely to be. That way, the chances are you won’t be [...]

How Long Will Patients Spend In the ER Before They Get Mad?

Reporting from the ACEP Scientific Symposium (I just got back. It was great!) from the Wall Street Journal Health Blog:
The longer it takes for a patient to get through the emergency room, the less happy the patient’s going to be with the experience. But how long is too long?
The docs, from Beaumont Hospital in Troy, [...]

GruntDoc: “Newsflash: Transportation is Dangerous”

An insightful summary and comments on recent regulatory oversight and reportage pertaining to air medical (and ground) EMS transport from GruntDoc.

NTSB Looks at Air Medical Crashes

From the Wall Street Journal Health Blog:
In less than a year, nine emergency medical helicopters have crashed, killing 35 people, the Associated Press reports.
The National Transportation Safety Board thinks that’s too many, and it voted yesterday to put EMS flights on its list of top safety priorities.
Medical helicopters have been under scrutiny for a while [...]

EP Turned Down By Canadian Immigration

From the Calgary Sun:
Against the backdrop of an acute doctor shortage, a South African-born emergency physician in Calgary is considering job offers in the U.S. after his application for permanent residency in Canada was rejected because one of his daughters is severely handicapped.
Dr. Stanley Muwanguzi is frustrated with being in limbo while Citizenship and Immigration [...]

MRIs Are a Breeding Ground for Super Bugs Like MRSA

From DotMD:
The Joint Commission–the agency that certifies hospitals–is extremely concerned about super bugs like Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) and is evaluating control procedures for every department in hospitals including the MRI suite, says Peter Rothschild, M.D., a radiologist and MRI expert who authored the landmark paper “Preventing Infection in MRI: Best Practices.”
But efforts to [...]

Admit to the Hallway

Hallways on the floor, not to be confused with boarding (often in the hallways) in the ED:
From the Wall Street Journal Health Blog:
Here’s one way to ease overcrowding in the emergency room: Move patients to the hallway.
Some hospitals are giving it a try, putting patients in hallways when they’re ready to be admitted, the Associated [...]

Checklists

From PookieMD:
One of my hospitalist colleagues uses the following check list at discharge, necessitated because the EMR we use makes us go between several screens and logins:

write discharge summary
write discharge orders
send note to PCP
set up follow up
write scripts

Useful primary care check lists would be:

State of undress for each exam:  (female pap: the full Monty, male: [...]