eds news from FierceHealthcare
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Study: EDs not seeing patients quickly enough
Emergency departments usually aren't seeing patients in the recommended time frames, with only a small percentage meeting triage targets for patients needing to see a physician promptly, according to... Read more...
Trends: ED crowding may be pushing growth of urgent care centers
Over the past few years, emergency department crowding has grown steadily worse, with waits climbing to an average of 3.3 hours as of 2006, according to the CDC. Given these pressures on the ED,... Read more...
Case study: ED visits soar in MA
As FierceHealthcare readers know, more patients are seeking care in emergency departments than ever before, taxing not only EDs but hospitals as a whole. This problem includes hospitals in... Read more...
'Improved documentation' key to healthcare's future
In a roundtable discussion on Tuesday focusing on the results of a nationwide emergency department study conducted by the Health Management Academy, one of the primary points talked about was... Read more...
A physician's perspective on why the ED model is stuck
As some you will recall, in a recent column I looked at the issue of how EDs handle patients with non-critical but acute illnesses. (I'd suggested that some form of step-down care, probably in the... Read more...
Why EDs need urgent care services
Today, EDs are crowded at levels they've never been before, and there's few if any signs the problem can be made better. Sure, smart hospitals can improve patient flow by investing in IT that tracks... Read more...
SPOTLIGHT: Hospital EDs not ready for mass casualties
While they may be managing to deal with overcrowding right now, there's no way that the nation's hospital EDs will be ready for mass casualty events such as a natural disaster or terrorist attacks... Read more...
Trend: More free-standing EDs opening
In recent years, the number of freestanding emergency departments has grown dramatically, climbing 23 percent from 2005 to 2006, according to the American Hospital Association. These EDs treat many... Read more...
SPOTLIGHT: CA faces specialist flight from EDs
Specialists are becoming an increasingly precious commodity in emergency departments across the U.S. But even by national standards, things are particularly bad in California, whose Medi-Cal program... Read more...
U.S. Reps give boost to physician-owned hospitals
In recent times, physician-owned hospitals have taken a lot of fire in Congress--but... Read more...
