ED Management – October 1, 2005
October 1, 2005
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Evacuate or ‘hunker down?’ ED experts ponder options as Katrina wreaks havoc
Hurricane Katrina, clearly, was a health care disaster of unimaginable proportions. In the wake of the storm, Gulf Coast hospital emergency generators were rendered inoperable by rising floodwaters. -
ED physician provides view from the front lines
Many stories are emerging from the EDs and field hospitals responding to patient needs following Hurricane Katrina, but few have been as moving as the e-mail by Hemant H. Vankawala, MD, an emergency physician with Questcare partners in Dallas, Denton (TX) Regional Medical Center, and the downtown Dallas Baylor University Medical Center, sent to several of his colleagues. -
Staffing up helps EDs handle Katrina surge
Hurricane Katrinas impact was felt far beyond those areas that received the storms direct fury. From Alabama to Texas, EDs that already were overcrowded had to deal with a sudden influx of transfers that, in most cases, doubled their normal censuses. -
Preplanning can ease psychiatric transfers
The recent fining of Behavioral Hospital of Lutcher (LA) for allegedly failing to appropriately accept transfers of two patients suffering psychiatric emergencies may have offered a bit of consolation to ED managers who are increasingly frustrated by their inability to successfully transfer such patients, but it was also a sober reminder of the severity of the problem. -
Accelerated triage cuts LWBS rate in half
An accelerated triage process developed by the ED staff at University of California San Diego (UCSD) Medical Center has reduced the frequency of patients who left without being seen by a physician by almost 50% from about 8% to 4%. -
Technology combo yields high satisfaction rates
Joe DiMaggio Childrens Hospital in Hollywood, FL, improved patient satisfaction from the 81st percentile in March 2005 to the 99th percentile in June 2005, and it has remained at that level. At newly opened Memorial Hospital in Miramar, FL, satisfaction rates rose from 85% to 99% in one quarter. -
Patients transported by helicopter fare better
A recent study in the Annals of Emergency Medicine finds that patients with traumatic brain injuries who are transported by medical helicopters have higher chances of survival and better recoveries than ground-transported patients.