Essential Physician Skills

From Movin’ Meat:
When you think about the requisite skills and qualities of an exceptional Emergency Physician, the elements that come to mind include knowledge base, interpersonal skills, communication skills, energy level, ability to multitask, decisiveness, and that sort of thing. Most of the candidates I have interviewed so far have these capabilities, some to [...]

Find Nearby Flu Shots with Google Maps

From Lifehacker:
In an effort to help battle flu season, Google has released a new Google Maps feature that helps you find nearby locations for both seasonal and H1N1 flu vaccinations. Just point your browser to their flu shot finder, click the Change location link in the left sidebar, enter your address, and Google returns the [...]

Medicaid Cuts in Indiana

From Modern Healthcare:
The Indiana Hospital Association is criticizing the state’s decision to cut Medicaid payments to its members by 5% to adjust for revenue shortfalls.
“These cuts represent a significant blow to the ability of Indiana’s hospitals to serve their communities,” association President Douglas Leonard said in a written statement. “Hospitals will be forced to make [...]

Reducing Pain in Venipuncture

From AHC Media:
n 2002, 28.6 million intravenous (IV) catheters were placed in U.S. emergency departments (EDs).1 Venous cannulation for IV starts and blood draws is the most common procedure in the acute care setting, and cannulation causes moderate to severe pain in a significant number of patients.2
Multiple guidelines from national and international organizations, including the [...]

Study: Rural health care costs rising at an ‘unsustainable trajectory’

From the Iowa Independent (via RACnews/Twitter):
A new white paper released by The Iowa Policy Project focuses on the disparities at play when rural residents seek health care insurance.
“[This report] really highlights that the need for health reform that isn’t limited to people who are working outside their home — that it is a big issue [...]

Airway management and initial resuscitation of the trauma patient

From Current Opinion in Critical Care:
Purpose of review: This review will analyze and comment on selected recent literature pertaining to airway management and initial fluid resuscitation in the trauma patient. It will also review airway devices currently being used in the trauma setting.
Recent findings: Although a recent study has questioned the efficacy of manual inline [...]

CMS Announces Hospital Outpatient Public Reporting Policy

From the EDPMA:
In 2010, CMS intends to publicly report hospital outpatient quality measure data.   These data will include those that are submitted by subsection (d) hospitals reimbursed under the Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) to fulfill requirements of the Hospital Outpatient Quality Data Reporting Program (HOP QDRP) as well as those submitted by Critical [...]

Mental patients stuck in emergency rooms for days

From the Charlotte Observer :
Across North Carolina, mental patients are routinely languishing for days in emergency rooms ill-equipped to care for them, waiting for a bed to open at one of four state-run psychiatric hospitals.
Often, they pass the time handcuffed or sedated. Law-enforcement officers assigned to guard patients at community medical centers such as Grace [...]

Headed to the emergency room? Bring a book

From the LA Times:
The stereotype of hospital emergency rooms crowded with patients waiting endlessly to be seen by a doctor is true, according to a new study in Tuesday’s edition of Archives of Internal Medicine. The conventional wisdom that throngs of low-income, uninsured people who use the ER as a substitute for primary care visits [...]

Only 1% of Hospitals Are Below Average*

*In the opinion of the people who chair hospital boards.
From the Wall Street Journal Health Blog:
Ninety-nine percent of hospital board chairmen think their hospital fares at least as well as a typical hospital on standard quality measures. Among the chairmen of hospitals that perform worst, 100% say their hospital performs at least as well as [...]