Articles: emergency-services.
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The police have become one of the primary referral agencies for psychiatric assistance in the community. They utilize certain factors that determine the decisions affecting case disposition for every mental health assistance call they receive. This study of a police department's mental health responses for the year 1985 attempts to analyze the police officers' placement decisions for the mentally ill and the criteria for which such dispositions are made.
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This article has presented an overview of the duties, responsibilities, and management roles of the emergency department Medical Director, a position that can be among the most challenging, stimulating, and exciting in medicine. However, prior to accepting a position as an Emergency Department medical director, one should have a clear understanding of what the job entails. ⋯ Once the job has been accepted, using the roles, responsibilities, and duties detailed herein may be of benefit--but should always be applied with good judgment, tactful cooperation, and common sense. Finally, it should not be surprising to a medical director to find, as Spinoza did many years ago, that the excellent thing he aspires to are as difficult as they are rare.
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This article discusses current applications of computers in the Emergency Department. Different approaches for computerization are compared, and difficulties and problems of computerization are discussed.
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This article discusses risk management and control of malpractice risk in the Emergency Department. Particular emphasis is placed on actuarial information related to Emergency Department losses.
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With regionalization of specialized health care services, some patients must be transferred between hospital to receive needed care. The authors evaluated 100 transfers to their emergency department as to the adequacy of stabilization prior to transport. Problems were identified in the areas of communication (nine cases), oxygenation (two cases), cardiac monitoring (one case), intravenous lines (eight cases), airway (two cases), ventilation (one case), equipment and personnel accompanying the patient (one case), bladder catheterization (four cases), nasogastric suctioning (one case), radiographs (nine cases), and spinal immobilization (seven cases). ⋯ A review of the literature shows that inadequacies in stabilization for transfer are widespread. This may be improved through physician education, use of transport teams, and judicious use of interhospital transport. The indications and responsibilities of transfer are discussed.