The Decline and Fall of Triage in the ER
The national trend toward overcrowding in emergency rooms is having an interesting effect on a process that was conceived to handle a large number of injured patients: triage. One might expect that as...
View ArticleSaving Time in the ER, Even When It’s Not Life and Death
In the ER, we celebrate small improvements. After all, we work in a place where a few minutes saved could mean the difference between life and death. In other cases, shaving a few minutes off a process...
View ArticleHealthcare Quality Improvement Is About Looking Back and Ahead
There’s an old joke told by PhDs: A doctor and a researcher are walking along a river when a drowning person floats by. The doctor jumps in and heroically saves him. A few minutes later the same...
View ArticleThoughts on Choosing Wisely and Overuse
About five months ago nine physician specialty groups got together and decided to examine specific tests and procedures that are commonly used but not necessary in their respective fields. They named...
View ArticleStrategies to Address ED Boarding Must Include Strong Partnership Between...
Two recent articles on ED boarding and patient flow highlight growing awareness of the importance of this issue and its impact on what emergency physicians do every day. But while both articles suggest...
View ArticleInformation Technology in Healthcare is a Mixed Blessing… So Far
Last month, I found myself cursing at the television while watching the network evening news with my wife. There was a story running about the “atypical presentations” of women and heart disease....
View ArticleThe MEP Dashboard: Using Technology for More Efficient, Better Care in the ER
I’m not going to say it’s MEP’s secret weapon (that would be our culture), but the application of technology in measuring the performance of individual doctors is certainly one of the keys to the...
View ArticleHIMSS 2013 – Health IT at the Forefront
Inspiration, information and innovation all embody one of the biggest health informatics conferences in the world: HIMSS 2013. Having just returned from my first trip to the annual Healthcare...
View ArticleHow to Fix a Troubled Emergency Department: Meritus Medical Center
The Emergency Department at Meritus Medical Center in Hagerstown, MD is one of the best in the state. Patients get seen very quickly; the “Left Without Being Seen” rate is less than 1 percent; and both...
View ArticleHospital Capacity Management and the Enlightened Hospital Leader
Nearly every hospital leader in America will tell you their hospital is all about patient-centered care. Of course, we know this isn’t true in many cases, especially when it comes to hospital capacity...
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