[2 MIN READ]

The development of tools and resources to guide the busy practitioner in prescription decision-making is a welcome trend in healthcare, particularly when the information is instantly available from valuable sources, including Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs and the patient’s medication history. As outlined recently by Ms. Caldwell on the MEDHOST blog, marrying these resources into the prescription functionality of an EHR is a key component in the effort to combat the opioid crisis.

We've featured a variety of topics, cases, and missed diagnoses on our blog this year, and we hope that you've found the content useful and relevant.

In case you missed some of 2018's most popular posts, here are the top 10 articles from the blog this year, according to our website visitor statistics. Which article is most valuable to you?

[2 MIN READ]

When you serve clinicians with varying experience levels, how do you implement your triage training courses to create an ideal experience for each group?

While your implementation plan and structure might vary based on the size of your facility, our experienced triage educators outline these best practices to streamline your program and ensure that expectations are clear.

[3 MIN READ]

Over the past few blogs, I have written about the interaction of the physician and the patient. I have also discussed that physician satisfaction is the force that drives the practice of medicine. I am hoping that I have made a strong case for the topic today. But what is exactly the “missed obvious?”

There has been a tremendous push toward patient satisfaction.

So great was the push that payment structures, financial assistance, and government evaluations of hospitals and physicians were based on it. What is astonishing is that studies show patients to be more interested in how the physician interacted with them than how he or she treated them.

[3 MIN READ]

The risks we face as acute care practitioners are not static—they evolve over time. Just as we master the approach to a longstanding high-risk problem, a new risky patient presentation rears its head to challenge us. Consider ectopic pregnancy. Now that we routinely obtain pregnancy tests on all women from age 10 to 60 and have access to or skills in ultrasound, the evaluation of possible ectopic pregnancy has become largely an algorithmically routine matter, and errors involving ectopic pregnancy have plummeted as a result.

[3 MIN READ]

Correct patient identification has long been at the top of the list regarding safety.

A recent TSG article by Dr. Tom Syzek entitled “Medical Errors, Communication, Teamwork and End of Life: Lessons from Angola” speaks to the importance of correct patient identification and the safety implications surrounding it. This article dovetails nicely with the new 2019 Joint Commission National Patient Safety Goal (NPSG) regarding newborn identification, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to keep the conversation relevant and on-topic by addressing this new NPSG.

[4 MIN READ]

“I just wish they would let us be doctors.” These words came from the mouth of my colleague while we were working together in the emergency department one night. He was sharing his frustrations with his scribe at the time, lamenting the nostalgic and romantic idea of having the freedom to practice as a physician! His phrase resonates with so many physicians, and in its sentiment lies the very essence of physician burnout, loss of engagement, and the destruction of the fabric of medicine! Allow me to explain.

[9 MIN READ]

I certainly don’t pretend to have the answer to the question of how to eliminate the opioid epidemic. There are legislative, regulatory and policy issues far greater than any one of us, but what can the medical community do? This was the call to action by Stephen Stack, President of the AMA, who also happens to be an emergency physician. Dr. Stack clearly labels this as an epidemic and says we have to do something.

[5 MIN READ]

In a recent blog entitled “The Opioid Crisis: Far From Over,” I reviewed the genesis, magnitude and impact of the opioid crisis in America. Now I will switch gears a bit and look at the trends in the liability of opioid prescribing.

Civil Liabilities

First there’s civil liability, which can and does result in fines and judgment awards. One potential civil liability is overprescribing opioids in quantity and/or frequency over long periods.

[12 MIN READ]

For the past two decades, the U.S. has experienced alarming rates of opioid use, misuse, abuse, and overdose deaths, and we are now ground zero for the opioid epidemic. This epidemic is rife with risks for patients, practitioners, insurers, healthcare organizations, communities, and our entire society. This is the first article in a three-part series in which we’ll explore the opioid epidemic, liability trends related to opioid prescribing, and strategies to reduce harm from opioid prescribing and abuse.