Do we need to be giving charcoal to overdose patients in the emergency department? This excellent article from Detroit Receiving’s ED gives the lowdown on when charcoal is useful and when it is not. The bottom line is that charcoal isn’t as useful nearly as often as we think.
Book ‘em, Dumbo.
A nurse working in an emergency department gets arrested (or “detained”) by an officer demanding that she draw blood on a suspected drunken driver. When the nurse stated that the arrestee needed to be registered as a patient and that the nurse wanted to check with her supervisor before drawing the blood, she was taken into custody and led out of the hospital in handcuffs. According to the attorney suing the city, the officer told the hospital that the nurse would be released from the back of the officer’s squad care once someone drew blood on the suspected drunken driver. Strange that there wasn’t a police report filed on the incident. Second story about the incident is here. The accused officer responds.
It’s a start ….
The White House announced a $25 million medical malpractice initiative as part of its plan to rein in skyrocketing health care costs. Only problem, as Happy Hospitalist notes, is that the initiative is, oh, .0000125 of the total amount of spending on the 2 trillion health care budget.
Should malpractice damage caps be a part of health care reform? A pro and con argument is worth reading at the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Personally, I think that $350,000 caps aren’t fair to patients who are seriously injured, but I also think that $60 million verdicts aren’t fair to anyone. Perhaps caps of $1 million to $1.5 million would be a reasonable compromise.
In the same vein, should Americans be forced to purchase health insurance?
One Florida hospital system is posting its emergency department wait times on highway billboards. Wonder what effect it will have on business.
Washington State’s Supreme Court threw out a law that required potential plaintiffs to obtain a “certificate of merit” from a physician before filing a malpractice case. Will this move result in more frivolous cases being filed? Perhaps. My gut tells me that most law firms consult with a doctor to determine whether a case has merit anyway – unless some of the attorneys in the firm can channel messages from unborn children confirming a doctor’s negligence.
Which is cheaper – treating an illegal immigrant in the emergency department or giving them a round trip ticket to Paris to be seen in one of their EDs?
Massachusetts is a model for health reform according to its governor. After all, over 97% of Massachusetts residents are insured and Massachusetts residents “now have better access to preventive care in lower cost primary-care settings.” The article also states that health-care reform “has only added moderate incremental costs to the state budget” and has resulted in “a decrease in demand for costly emergency-room care.” Some would call bullshit. Here and here and here and here and here and here.
More violence in the ED. A gunman walks into a Chicago VA Hospital and fires shots. SWAT team moves in. More news at 11.
Yesterday, while traveling back from SC, I saw the same approach for the hospitals there…posting the wait times on a digital billboard. I would have been tempted to pick one if I needed it, based on that.
I use the urgent care centers before the ER. Much more timely and efficient IMO.
Seems a bit misleading. It isn’t like the expected wait time at a restaurant. A few ambulances with really sick patient roll in and wait time goes up drastically.
It also seems to be like fishing for unnecessary ER visits. Someone would go to the ER if there was a 15 minute wait but not if the wait is 45 minutes usually doesn’t have a life-threatening emergency.
I have a question about an article and this is kind of a catch all thread. What about this article is true or false?
http://wallstreetpit.com/5769-the-medical-cartel-why-are-md-salaries-so-high
I’ve often wondered about this restriction on medical schools and slots. Why does it exist and who determines how many? Can one of you physicians enlighten me?
A couple of questions arose from the AJC pro-con tort reform editorials
” After Texas capped damages, allowing negligent doctors to harm patients without the fear of lawsuits, the number of medical malpractice complaints to the Texas State Medical Board actually rose from 2,942 to 6,000 in just one year.”
I wonder about this, if it’s not the converse to the claim the “reformers” make about how lawsuits drop. Since the law didn’t take affect for some time after it passed, I wonder if the jump is during the period between passage and effect. Neither having anything to do with the actual merit of the legislation, merely the date it went into effect.
“Data from the American Medical Association shows that the number of practicing physicians has actually been increasing across the board for many years. And the number of physicians is significantly higher in states without caps on damages.”
WC, is this true?