Comments on: A little Rant on needless ER visits

By: Best Medical Blogs - Week Ending October 26, 2007 | The Rejected | Where Real Life Meets Medicine

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 05:04:01 +0000

[...] Needless ER Visits [...]

By: Healthcare Intelligence Network » Blog Archive » More Venting About Unnecessary ER Use

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:27:14 +0000

[...] Doc Shazam describes a few more cases that should have stayed home. [...]

By: Patricia Donovan

Patricia Donovan — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:42:28 +0000

This is a familiar topic for our audience of healthcare executives — reducing non-emergent use of the ER. Change will be slow, but as more health plans and hospitals put caseworkers in the ER to educate patients about proper ER use, raise co-pays for ER visits and enforce the idea of medical homes for all, some potential patients may just decide to stay home.

By: Jared

Jared — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 18:16:29 +0000

There are projects with groups like firefighters and police officers for “how to stay out of X-group’s way”.

Why has no one developed one for ER’s?

By: Ten out of Ten

Ten out of Ten — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 23:01:26 +0000

Fair, logical, reasonable thoughts on a really frustrating topic. Great post!

By: white cap nurse

white cap nurse — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 04:24:27 +0000

We had a patient come to the ER last week to have her routine INR drawn despite having had her other labs drawn already that day. She decided the INR should be drawn at the ER and whoever was drawing the blood thought that was OK! (It was at a therapeutic level.)

By: Trusted.MD Network

Trusted.MD Network — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 17:43:34 +0000

Needless ER visits…

How needless ER visits sucks money and time from the health care system….

By: Kate

Kate — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 16:41:56 +0000

I can definitely sympathize with your annoyance. Being at a teaching hospital, we have an even longer process to clear such minor cases including: 4a) Evaluation by a med student or intern. 4b) Evaluation by a senior resident. 4c) Evaluation by an attending physician. Things like the above can easily clog a bed for 2-4 hours, particularly if something more acute comes in.

The other day, I had a worker from an auto factory come in by EMS on high-flow oxygen. She was sent in by an “occupational” nurse at her workplace for a blood pressure of 145/90– and was entirely asymptomatic. I think my attending’s BP was well over that from just hearing about it.