pointhope

You might also look at you hospital policy for its copy of the laws governing EMTALA. This is the governments way of making sure that people are "screened" and treated appropriately without being refused or inappropriately transfered to another hospital. On most violations of this policy the initial fine to the hospital making the error are no less than $50 thousand. Big legal mess and the hospital usually distances itself (fires) from the nurses involved in the case. (BIG SURPRISE) Another issue from a lisensure stand point would be keeping the doctor informed of your patients status even when he is running around crazy seeing other patients. DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT. There are other issues of course, like watch how many meds are given on verbal orders even when the ER has a policy to prevent this situation except in the event of a code. It happens in every ER. What if the doctor says later "I didn't say that", guess who is reported to the BNE with a med error. Patient privacy is another big issue. Most ERs have hall beds. No one can tell me that a patient in a hall bed has any privacy. There is another governing body JCAHO (that we all hate) that governs things like privacy and pain control (the big issues this year) This organization gives accreditation to hospitals. Medicare/Medicade unofficially use this accreditation to decide to pay hospitals. Oh well, I could go on forever.