Category: Emergency Medicine
You hope an accident or illness won’t send you to the ER. But being prepared can help you get good, timely, and safe care when should the need arises.
King County’s Emergency Medical Services has created one-minute training videos that can be downloaded to your Apple iPod Touch phone or Google phone on how to provide cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and what to do if someone is choking . “If people know CPR and choke aid procedures, they use them in an emergency. We developed a [...]
Many parents, concerned about influenza A/H1N1 (swine flu), are bring children with mild or even no symptoms to the emergency room at Seattle Children’s, more than doubling the number of patients the staff usually sees at this time of year. Most of these visits are unnecessary, hospital officials say, and are overburdening the emergency room’s [...]
Dogs and cats cause more than 86,000 falls each year—about 240 day—serious enough to send someone to the emergency department, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dogs caused more than seven times as many injuries as cats (88% vs. 11.7%), and girls and women were more than twice as likely [...]
If you have a cardiac arrest whether you live or die depends largely on where you live. If you live in Seattle, for example, you have about a 50/50 chance of surviving. But if you live in Dallas, Texas, your chances are 1 in 10. In New York City, they’re 1 in 20. And if you [...]
When should you go to the emergency room and when is it better to wait and be seen by your regular physician? Sometimes it’s a tough call. In this column, Dr. Carolyn Clancy, director of the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, provides tips on when and how to use emergency rooms. Calling your doctor’s [...]
Fighting hunger and obesity at the same time The Obama administration intends to use federal food assistance programs to improve the nutrition of the poor, the Washington Post reports. Obesity is a growing health problem with one in four Americans now being dangerously overweight and one in three children being either overweight or obese. Research, [...]
Seattle Red Cross is calling for people to nominate “Everyday Heros”, individuals who may have saved a life performing CPR or pulling someone from a burning building or has raised money to help someone in need. Winners of the Red Cross’s “Everyday People, Everyday Heroes” awards will be honored at the Red Cross’s Thirteenth Annual [...]
On average, last year it took less than five minutes from the time an emergency call reached dispatch for King County emergency medical teams to arrive on the scene, according to King County officials. The figures come from the EMS 2008 Annual Report released today (Sep. 10) by Public Health – Seattle & King County.
Emergency room records fail to document the diagnosis of mild brain injury in more than half of cases, Seattle researchers report. Failure to document the diagnosis in the chart can still cause problems because it may mean patients do not get needed follow-up care, education and rehabilitation or have the adequate documentation of the injury [...]
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Seattle Times Health News
Lost in translation: Lack of trained interpreters can lead to medical errors
Interpreter services at hospitals and other medical settings are often inadequate, forcing family members, including children, to step in, or the task falls to medical staff members who may not speak the language well.
Some insurers deny ER coverage to people who have been drinking
Laws in more than half the states permit insurers to deny payment for medical services related to alcohol or drug use. Faced with the prospect of not getting paid for care, some ER personnel sidestep the problem by simply not testing patients’ blood or urine for alcohol.
Travel insurance can protect your wallet — and your health on vacation
Think your regular health insurance policy will cover you if you get into medical trouble overseas?
Don’t bet on it.
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