Successful emergency room automation is possible

From ZDNet: The case studies are starting to come in. The naysayers are wrong. You can automate hospital operations and improve results. Even in the toughest environments, like the emergency room. I spent a pleasant morning chatting with Sherry Alton, a registered nurse who is director of emergency services for Graham Hospital in Canton, Illinois. [...]

Time of day, day of week analysis of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OCHA) frequency and viability

From Resuscitation: Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest frequency and survival: Evidence for temporal variability Some cardiac phenomena demonstrate temporal variability. We evaluated temporal variability in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) frequency and outcome. Methods: Prospective cohort study (the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium) of all OHCA of presumed cardiac cause who were treated by emergency medical services within 9 US [...]

‘Tis the season for elderly emergency room visits

From McKnight’s: The holidays are typically the time for families to gather for fun and cheer. But for families who haven’t been keeping track of an elderly relative’s health, the festivities may include a trip to the emergency room, a recent news article suggests. Sometimes, families who spend most of their time apart are alarmed [...]

Emergency Room docs offer inside scoop: How to get treated faster, better

From Daily Finance: Here are some things you can do to be treated faster and better: Avoid nights, weekends and holidays: Face it folks, doctors take time off, too, and you’ll be seen more quickly if you show up at 10 a.m. on a weekday rather than 10 p.m. on Saturday night — after there’s [...]

NY Times: ER says don’t come back

From the NY Times (opinion): Ed. Two inflammatory excerpts: Unfortunately, an emergency room won’t help — indeed, the closest E.R. has told him not to come back, he says. Without insurance, John has been unable to get surgery or even help managing the pain. When he collapses or suffers particularly excruciating headaches, Esther rushes him [...]

When is conduct reportable? National Practitioner Data Bank takes complaints from hospitals about physicians

From amednews: In an effort to promote patient safety across state lines, the National Practitioner Data Bank was created to give hospitals a snapshot of any issues with a physician’s history before credentialing. The idea behind the repository was to streamline a patchwork of state laws governing the reportability of adverse actions against a doctor’s [...]

Would Adding Residency Slots Solve the Primary-Care Shortage?

From the Wall Street Journal Health Blog: With the medical establishment warning of a looming shortage of primary-care docs and general surgeons, Sen. Chuck Schumer is getting ready to introduce an amendment to the Senate health-care bill that would add 2,000 new medical residency slots, the WSJ reports this morning. But adding residency slots may [...]

Stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive…

From CNN: Debra Bader was taking a walk in the woods with her 53-year-old husband one morning when suddenly he collapsed. At first she thought the situation was hopeless. “I looked at him and said, ‘He’s dead,’ because he wasn’t moving or making any sounds at all,” Bader remembers. “But I pulled the cell phone [...]

Aortic Dissection at Any Age: The Tyler Kahle Story

Ed. I saw this video during Dr. Sullivan’s lecture at the ACEP Scientific Symposium. From BestCare: The tragic death of a young man named Tyler Kahle has transformed care at Methodist Hospital. After coming to us for treatment, Tyler died from an undetected rupture inside his chest, a tearing of the aorta called thoracic aortic [...]

The joys of practicing rural emergency medicine

From Edwin Leap, posting on the Kevin MD blog: I practice in the rural, northwest corner of South Carolina, also known as “The Upstate.” It is a place of expansive lakes, white-water rivers and the mist covered foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The area includes thousands of acres of Sumter National Forest. The natural [...]