Tag: meritus-medical-center
Managing Super Utilizers at Meritus Medical Center
Last year at Meritus Medical Center in Maryland, where I am an emergency physician, a certain patient visited the ER 81 times. We have records of at least a dozen more patients like him, though none quite as extreme. One man visited the ER 65 times in 2012. Another visited 48 times. At least two […]
Read ArticleChange at Frederick Memorial Hospital, or, Looking for Brown Ferns
The last time our emergency medicine group took over management of a new emergency department, at Bristol Hospital in Connecticut, my colleague Noah Keller wrote a post about how we try to instill our unique brand of company culture within the first days and weeks of taking over. Rather than memorizing protocols, we are memorizing people’s names, he […]
Read ArticleFungal Meningitis: The New Iatrogenic
As natural disasters go, Hurricane Sandy was about as bad as it gets. But even as we come to expect that hurricanes will continue to arrive with greater frequency and ferocity, it is worth a pause to consider another disaster – this one wholly new, wholly unexpected, and wholly man-made. I am speaking of the […]
Read ArticleIn the Best Emergency Departments, Teams Save Lives – Not Individuals
My emergency physicians group takes teamwork very seriously, and not just amongst providers, but between all members of the healthcare team. That’s because we know well just how big a difference it makes in patient care. Be it the pre-hospital medic team, nursing, techs, scribes, or patient care managers, we recognize that medicine is a team […]
Read 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. Everything from fatigue, to nausea, to dizziness…… “may be signs of a heart attack”. “Oh boy,” I said to my wife, “this is […]
Read ArticleStrategies to Address ED Boarding Must Include Strong Partnership Between Hospital and EM Group
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 some ways of dealing with ED boarding, neither addresses directly the key ingredient to ensuring those strategies succeed: correct framing enabled by […]
Read ArticleHow to Communicate with Patients in the ER: First Seek to Understand
A new patient is placed in room 18. I read the chief complaint as I sign up to see the patient: 32-year-old male seeking detox from narcotics. Let’s be honest: most of us in emergency medicine are not thrilled to see this patient. First of all, in most cases, there is not much that we […]
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