ED Management – October 1, 2006
October 1, 2006
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Approval of nonprescription sale of Plan B muddies ethical waters
The recent federal approval of nonprescription sales of the emergency contraceptive Plan B (Barr Laboratories; Woodcliffe Lake, NJ) to women and men ages 18 and older may have quieted what was a brewing controversy in emergency medicine. However, the ethical issues that gave rise to the debate still are very much in play, ED experts say. -
ED managers face many ethical issues
While the Plan B controversy has dominated emergency medicine news lately, there are several other ethical issues that arise in the ED from time to time and can create conflicts for ED physicians and nurses. -
EDs pool resources to weather flood
Three hospital EDs in Binghamton, NY, overcame late June floodwaters that caused one of them to close by sharing staff and other resources to enable the remaining two to function with increased caseloads until operations returned to normal. -
JCAHO issues Alert for power failures
These disasters showed how severely clinical operations can be affected in health care organizations that lose their electrical power, and they have led the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations to issue a Sentinel Event Alert. -
Hospital planning ahead for bird flu pandemic
The staff at the University of Utah Hospital, Salt Lake City, is taking a proactive approach to the possibility of an avian flu or other influenza pandemic, and the ED is playing an integral role in the development of the response plan. -
Satisfaction turnaround requires persistence
The ED staff at Saint Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, MO, is justifiably proud of the Compass Award it recently received from Press Ganey Associates of South Bend, IN, for raising their patient satisfaction scores from the 36th percentile to the 96th. But they'll also be the first to tell you it wasn't easy. -
Help your ED staff get over culture shock
Patient satisfaction improvement projects can be a significant challenge for an ED manager, says Marcia Abernathy, RN, director of emergency services at Saint Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, MO. -
Will new e-facility help fight ED overcrowding?
A newly opened telemedicine primary care facility in Peachtree City, GA, called Health-e-Station, will help curtail the severe overcrowding problems facing area EDs, according to its founder. -
Study: Minor ailments don't cause ED overcrowding
Patients who come to EDs with minor conditions do not contribute significantly to delays and overcrowding, despite widely held beliefs to the contrary, according to a new study published on-line by the Annals of Emergency Medicine.