“We saw the ambulance shaking like there was something going on inside”

No, not that. It was a medic attacked by a PCP-crazed patient.

From Fox 4 News:

Kansas City police believe the drug may be responsible for an attack on an ambulance worker this weekend.

“We saw the ambulance shaking like there was something going on inside,” says Wali Shaw, a neighbor of the 31-year old suspect who watched as the struggle spilled out of the ambulance. “When the doors broke open I saw him come out of the ambulance and he was on the ground in front of his house”

The suspect was soon tased and subdued by police. It’s this unpredictable and aggressive behavior that makes responding to calls like this dangerous for officers.

Nonprofit reaches out to Medicaid patients to cut ED visits

From Penn Live:

In an effort to bring down costs and improve medical care in some of Chicago’s most poverty-stricken neighborhoods, a coalition of six hospitals and more than 100 clinics and physician practices are participating in the venture.

The idea aims to keep patients like Barnes from using the emergency room for unnecessary visits and steer them into primary-care settings, a goal that Medical Home Network estimates can save between 2 percent and 4 percent of the $550 million annual cost of providing care to the pool of patients. That amounts to between $11 million and $22 million in its first year of operation.

Linked via an Internet portal accessed with proprietary software, providers are able to exchange real-time patient data including Medicaid claims history, prescriptions and visits to connected clinics or hospitals.

ER visits after drinking may not be covered

From MSNBC (hat tip: Joshua Porter):

Up to half of the people who are treated at hospital emergency departments and trauma centers are under the influence of alcohol, experts say. That may be a sobering statistic, yet a recent study found that emergency departments can capitalize on this “teachable moment” to discourage problem drinking in the future.

But laws in more than half the states permit insurers to deny payment for medical services related to alcohol or drug use and that can derail hospitals’ best intentions, experts say. Faced with the prospect of not getting paid for care, some emergency department personnel may sidestep the problem by simply not testing patients’ blood or urine for alcohol.

ER Doc, Sandia Labs Engineer Join Forces on Stronger Trauma Shears

From Newswise (press release):

An Albuquerque physician teamed with a Sandia National Laboratories engineer to improve the doctor’s trauma shears design so emergency personnel can get to the injuries they need to treat more quickly.

“Sometimes seconds count. This product will make a difference for the medical community,” said Mark Reece of Sandia’s Multiscale Metallurgical Science & Technology group. “It’s neat to see something come out of Sandia that will save lives.”

Handoff program cuts medical errors by 40%

From Fierce Healthcare:

The patient safety and medical education initiative standardizes patient handoffs during shift changes, according to the research announcement yesterday. In the I-PASS model, clinicians trained in communication and teamwork skills using the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality-developed TeamSTEPPS use a mnemonic device to convene key information:
I – Illness severity
P – Patient summary
A – Action list for the next team
S – Situation awareness and contingency plans
S – Synthesis and “read-back” of the information

E.R. Doctors Face Quandary on Painkillers

From the NY Times:

The frequent prescription of narcotics in emergency departments for dental pain has been quantified for the first time by research financed by the National Institutes of Health, bringing to light another way opioids get into circulation and contribute to the rampant abuse of painkillers in the United States.

From 1997 to 2007, painkillers were prescribed in three of four visits to the emergency department for dental complaints; roughly half of visits resulted in a prescription for antibiotics, according to a new analysis of the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey by Dr. Christopher Okunseri, a practicing dentist and an associate professor of public health at the Marquette University School of Dentistry in Milwaukee.

Over that period, the number of painkiller prescriptions for dental patients in emergency departments rose 26 percent, and antibiotic prescriptions jumped 41 percent, according to the report, published online in January in the journal Medical Care.

Study finds value in counseling problem drinkers during emergency-room visits

From the Washington Post:

Up to half of the people treated at hospital emergency departments and trauma centers are under the influence of alcohol, experts say. That might be a sobering statistic, but a recent study found that emergency departments can help capitalize on this “teachable moment” to discourage problem drinking.

In the study, published online in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, nearly 600 emergency department patients who were identified as hazardous or harmful drinkers (defined for men as drinking more than 14 drinks per week or more than four on any single occasion, and for women as more than seven weekly drinks or three on any one occasion) took part in a seven-minute interview.

During the interview, an emergency department staff member described the link between alcohol use and the patient’s condition as well as guidelines for low-risk drinking. The interviewer also encouraged the patient to discuss what was stopping him from drinking less and to set a drinking goal.

Compared with those who received standard care, patients who took part in the sessions reduced their average number of weekly drinks significantly as well as their episodes of binge drinking and of drinking and driving over the next 12 months.

Official: Quitman ER exposed to ‘Temik’

From KLTV:

Members of the Quitman, Hainesville, Mineola and Longview Fire Departments respond to a Hazardous Materials (Haz-Mat) incident reported to be in the emergency room of East Texas Medical Center (ETMC) Quitman.

The initial call for service to Mineola FD began at approximately 3:30 p.m. on 04/28/2012 with a request to assist ETMC EMS on FM 1799 in Wood County.  It was reported that the incident involved an exposure to a toxic substance.  The toxic substance was reported to emergency service personnel as “Temik”, reported by some resources available as one of the most toxic poisons that may have ever been produced