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Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Emergency Room Care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Emergency Room Care. Show all posts

Friday, November 11, 2016

Psychiatric patients wait the longest in emergency rooms

By Amy Ellis Nutt
The Washington Post
Originally published October 18, 2016

Here is an excerpt:

Many studies over the past decade have shown that ER overcrowding results in higher mortality rates of ER patients, higher costs and higher stress levels for medical professionals.

That overcrowding won’t end anytime soon, Parker said, unless access to outpatient treatment centers expands. But in the latest survey, more than half of the ER physicians said mental health resources in their communities had declined in the past year.

The paradox at the heart of the problem is almost beyond comprehension, in Lippert’s view.

“Nowhere else in medicine,” she said, “do we have our most severely ill patients staying the longest.”

The article is here.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Sharp Rise in Drug Overdoses Among U.S. Women: CDC

By Steven Reinberg
MedicineNet.com
Originally posted July 2, 2013

The rate of fatal overdoses of prescription painkillers and other drugs among U.S. women quadrupled between 1999 and 2010, federal officials reported Tuesday.

Long thought of as primarily a male problem, drug addiction is increasingly affecting women, and the new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 42 women in the United States die each day from prescription drug overdoses.

"Prescription drug overdose deaths have skyrocketed in women," CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said during a noon press conference. "Mothers, wives, sisters and daughters are dying from overdoses at rates we have never seen before."

(cut)

Other statistics, based on 2010 data:

  • Suicides from these drugs accounted for 34 percent of all suicides among women, compared with 8 percent among men.
  • More than 940,000 women were seen in emergency departments for drug misuse or abuse.
  • More than 6,600 women, or 18 women every day, died from a prescription painkiller overdose.
  • Narcotic painkillers accounted for four times more deaths among women than deaths linked to cocaine and heroin combined.
  • More than 200,000 emergency department visits were for misuse or abuse of these drugs among women -- about one every three minutes.

The entire story is here.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Out of the ER

By Jessica Zigmond
Modern Healthcare
Originally published on May 26, 2013

Borderline personality disorder. Schizophrenia. Psychotic tendencies. Suicidal behaviors. Typically found in the caseload of an inpatient psychiatric facility, these conditions have become prevalent in another area of the U.S. healthcare system: the acute-care hospital emergency department.

In 2006, an Institute of Medicine report concluded hospital emergency rooms are overwhelmed, citing increases in lengths of stay for patients seeking care, crowding of existing ER space and boarding of patients who need an inpatient bed as the reasons.

And a recent study published online in the Annals of Emergency Medicine shows that psychiatric patients spent more than 11 hours in the ER, on average, when they sought care. According to the recent findings, the need for hospitalization, use of restraints and completing diagnostic imaging led to more time after a patient was assessed, while the presence of alcohol on toxicology screening caused delays earlier in ER stay.

“Basically, the ER has gone from an emergency room to a place where all of society's problems show up,” says Dr. Nicholas Vasquez, an emergency services physician at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, who did not speak on behalf of the hospital. “And one of those is mental health issues.”

A noisy, chaotic place isn't the appropriate setting for patients who require stability and quiet, says Vasquez, past president of the Arizona College of Emergency Physicians. As he explains, the 60-bed emergency department where he works expands and contracts throughout the day and includes an average of three to four psychiatric patients daily.

The entire story is reprinted here.

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Psychiatric Patients Languish In Emergency Rooms

By Eric Whitney
Colorado Public Radio in conjunction with Kaiser Health News
Originally published May 31, 2012

Last fall Kathy Partridge got a phone call from a local emergency room, telling her that her daughter, Jessie Glasscock, was there -- and was OK. Glasscock had gone missing overnight.  She was away at college, and had a history of manic episodes. Police had found her in a dumpster and brought her to the ER for her own safety.  It was a huge relief for her mother – but she was completely surprised by what happened next.

"It sort of seemed like, well, they'll stabilize her, help her get back on her meds and she'll pick up her pieces. Instead, I went down to this emergency room and just found her by herself, basically locked in a closet," Partridge said. 

The "closet" was actually an exam room, but Partridge explains it was small, windowless, and the only furniture was a stainless steel bed.  Her daughter waited there, wearing nothing but a hospital gown, without treatment or a decent meal for 24 hours.  Partridge was shocked to learn there was no place for her daughter to get treatment.  "There was not a single psychiatric bed to release her in in the entire state of Colorado," she says.

The entire story is here.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Waiting for Health Care

By Peter Nicks
The New York Times - Op-DOCS
Originally published May 20, 2012

“The Waiting Room” developed from stories my wife, a speech pathologist at Highland Hospital, told me about the struggles and resilience of her patient population. And a few years ago, as the contentious vote for health care reform got louder, it occurred to me that the people who were not participating in the debate were the very people we were fighting over: those stuck in waiting rooms at underfunded public hospitals all over the country. How would the patients in the waiting room at Highland Hospital respond to President George W. Bush’s statement, echoed by many others, that we already have universal health care in this country because, by law, nobody can be turned away from an emergency room for lack of ability to pay?

The entire story is here.