Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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To determine whether computer-assisted prescription writing reduces the frequency of prescription errors in the emergency department (ED). ⋯ Computer-assisted prescriptions were more than three times less likely to contain errors and five times less likely to require pharmacist clarification than handwritten prescriptions.
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What are the quality effects of an emergency medicine (EM) residency, and the associated 24/7 supervision of residents by faculty, in an academic emergency department (ED)? The authors evaluated activity and quality indicators when there were no EM residents present. The hypothesis of the study was that there was no difference between the patient care provided by faculty supervising EM residents and that with an alternative model without EM residents (AbsenceEMResident). ⋯ During the study period, there was no measurable difference for most of the quality indicators studied. The AbsenceEMResident model is less efficient in admitting patients. Faculty supervision results in the same number of laboratory and radiology tests and consultations. Other specialties may consider this model if off-hours care becomes a concern.
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Clinical decision making is a cornerstone of high-quality care in emergency medicine. The density of decision making is unusually high in this unique milieu, and a combination of strategies has necessarily evolved to manage the load. In addition to the traditional hypothetico-deductive method, emergency physicians use several other approaches, principal among which are heuristics. ⋯ Thirty are catalogued in this article, together with descriptions of their properties as well as the impact they have on clinical decision making in the ED. Strategies are delineated in each case, to minimize their occurrence. Detection and recognition of these cognitive phenomena are a first step in achieving cognitive de-biasing to improve clinical decision making in the ED.
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1) To determine how and when emergency department (ED) patients and their families wish to learn of health care errors. 2) To assess the error threshold this population believes should trigger reporting to government agencies, state medical boards, and hospital patient safety committees. 3) To evaluate the role patients and families believe medical educators should play in this process. ⋯ Regardless of health care utilization, a majority of respondents want full disclosure of medical error and wish to be informed of error immediately upon its detection. Respondents support reporting of errors to government agencies, the state medical board, and hospital committees focused on patient safety. Teaching physicians error disclosure techniques, honesty, and compassion were endorsed as a priority for educators who teach error management.
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The findings are presented of a consensus committee created to address the measuring and improving of quality in emergency medicine. The objective of the committee was to critically evaluate how quality in emergency medicine can be measured and how quality improvement projects can positively affect the care of emergency patients. Medical quality is defined as "the care health professionals would want to receive if they got sick." The literature of quality improvement in emergency medicine is reviewed and analyzed. ⋯ Successful strategies for changing physician behavior are detailed as well as barriers to change. Examples are given of successful quality improvement efforts. Also examined is how to address the emergency care needs of vulnerable populations such as older persons, women, those without health insurance, and ethnic minorities.