Tag: emergency-room

The Expanding Role and Bright Future of Advanced Practice Practitioners in the Emergency Department

October 26th, 2011
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Advanced Practice Practitioners see a wide variety of patients at our hospital sites, from those with chest pain to those with minor lacerations and everything in between. This practice is not limited to us. Nationally, it is estimated that Physician Assistants (PA’s) see 10 percent of emergency room patients in the United States, and a 2009 […]

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Posted in Future of Healthcare, Quality Efficiency Utilization

Child, Scalp, Laceration, Vacation – When the Patient is Your Son

August 17th, 2011
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If there were four words I was hoping to combine on our family vacation this past week, it is safe to assume they would not be the four listed above. My 19 month-old son, Chance (aptly named), decided to take a header off a kitchen chair and struck the back of his head while we […]

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Posted in Life in the ER

New Observation Unit at WMHS Meets Growing Trend

July 22nd, 2011
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We are proud to announce the opening of a new observation medicine unit at Western Maryland Health System (WMHS) in Cumberland, MD. We believe observation medicine will be a growing specialty as health care reform changes the way health care is delivered in the United States. The concept is to allow a focused, intense evaluation of certain patients […]

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Posted in Observation Care

Reducing Medical Errors Through Improved Communication

May 24th, 2011
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The most important take away point from this WSJ article “Hospitals Overhaul ER’s to Reduce Mistakes” is communication. The article states that most errors in judgment involve missing pieces of critical data or information that one team member may be aware of and assume that others know. In an ideal world, the best model for […]

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Posted in Hospital Partnership, Quality Efficiency Utilization

The Future for Overcrowded EDs

May 17th, 2011
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At Western Maryland Health System, our daily census of emergency department patients has risen from an average of 150 to 166 over the past 1-2 months. Many people openly acknowledge they can’t get an appointment with their primary care doctor or that no doctor in the area is taking new patients. As health care reform […]

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Posted in Future of Healthcare