ED management : the monthly update on emergency department management
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Empowering frontline staff to share new ideas for improving processes and to participate in departmental decision making can lead not only to valuable new ideas, but will boost staff morale and lead to consistently high patient satisfaction levels. Have nurses sit in on all interviews for potential new employees, as well as on policy and procedures committee. Satisfied nurses with positive attitudes lead to a greater focus on the patient. When you receive complaints about a specific nurse, ask the nurse what could/should have been done differently.
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Having a portable ultrasound available to your ED will enable you to perform scans during the nighttime hours, instead of having patients wait for several hours until the radiology department opens. Additional time can be saved by having a technologist read the scans, which frees your ED physicians for other duties. Having ED docs contact the technologist directly, rather than going through a resident, also saves valuable time. Arriving at a diagnosis more quickly provides a boost to patient safety.