EMTs Disarm Psychiatric Patient Going For Cop Gun

From CBS New York: Two emergency medical technicians have disarmed a psychiatric patient who tried to grab a police officer’s gun in a Bronx hospital emergency room. The New York Post reports that authorities say the man was stopped as he struggled with the officer and two emergency medical technicians who jumped to the rescue.

“Skin Printer” Generates Skin to Cover Injuries

From Neatorama: The system, which lays down cells with the same fluid-based inkjet technology used in many printers, could print large swathes of living tissue directly onto the injuries of soldiers wounded on the battlefield. Covering burns and related wounds is of critical importance because, the scientists note, “any loss of full-thickness skin of more [...]

Illinois Hospital Report Card

From the Illinois Department of Public Health: The Illinois Department of Public Health has released its newest information for the Hospital Report Card and added new information, including emergency room visits and pediatric information. “To help Illinoisians make better decisions about their choice of hospital or health care provider, they need information about the quality [...]

ABC 4 questions strategy to stop Utah’s exploding addiction to RX drugs

From ABC4: An ABC 4 taking action investigation is exposing the strategy lawmakers are using to fight Utah’s growing addiction to prescription medications. This week ABC 4′s Noah Bond uncovered how easy it is for an addict to feed a habit. All he or she has to do is walk into an emergency room and [...]

Braid: Too bad ER wait victims are not ducks

From the Calgary Herald: Beyond saying “nobody wants to wait in an emergency room” — Stelmach’s trite observation — the Tories express no empathy, voice no anger, call nobody to account. When the victims are ducks, though, the premier doesn’t tell anybody to cool down. He’s pretty hot himself. The duck deaths are “sad and [...]

Iowa hospital sees drop in alcohol emergencies

From the Chicago Tribune: An emergency room doctor says he believes Iowa City’s 21-and-older bar age is behind a drop in alcohol-related ER visits by young people to University Hospitals. The Gazette says Dr. Michael Takacs found ER visits by young adults age 18 to 22 decreased 25 percent when comparing a four-month period in [...]

Cops: Flemington woman stole iPad in Hunterdon Hospital’s ER

From NJ: A Flemington woman has been charged with theft for allegedly taking an unattended iPad from the waiting room at Hunterdon Medical Center’s emergency room Monday, police said today. Jessica L. Andrews, 23, told police she was planning to turn the device over to authorities.

Ten uses for your body after you die

From CNN: 5. Leave your body to “the body farm” Did you ever wonder how, on TV shows, detectives know the time of death just by examining the body? Cops can thank the folks at the University of Tennessee’s Forensic Anthropology Center for helping them figure it out. “The body farm,” as it’s known, has “650 [...]

Can emergency department nurses performing triage predict the need for admission?

From the Emergency Medicine Journal: Objective To investigate whether nurses performing triage are able to predict the need for admission of patients attending the emergency department (ED) with sufficient accuracy to facilitate hospital bed management. Methods A prospective observational study was performed in which nurses performing triage, in a large urban UK hospital, were asked [...]

Drug Seeking Behavior in ER Doubles, Feeds Growing Addiction to Pain Pills

From ABCNews: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of ER visits that involved non-medical use of narcotic pain medications more than doubled in the United States between 2004 and 2008. “This is a huge issue for emergency departments because, unlike the office setting, the ED treatment of pain is frequently [...]