Payors Work With Hospitals to Improve Emergency Departments

Insurance companies are working with hospitals to improve emergency departments, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Aon Corp., an insurance broker, estimates hospitals lost $1 billion in 2009 due to malpractice suits for ED incidents. Almost half of malpractice claims against EDs involve a wrong diagnosis, according to the report. Dana Siegal, program director of risk-management services for patient safety and medical malpractice company Crico/RMF, says erroneous diagnoses often occur because of unavailable information, such as a missing medical history.


Crico/RMF Strategies is working with 16 hospitals to improve physician-nurse communication in the emergency department by developing new triage systems, dividing the ED into separate sections, such as pediatrics and obstetrics and implementing nurse-physician huddles to review patient information.

CNA Financial Corp, a malpractice insurance company, advises hospitals to admit all patients with chest pain, because heart attacks are one of the most frequently missed diagnoses and admitted patients have nearly half the death rate of those who return home.

Other strategies include "time outs" before releasing a patient to allow nurses to stop discharge if they find overlooked data, a trigger system that looks for abnormalities in five vital signs and patient and family proactive behavior in revealing symptoms and medical history.

Read the Wall Street Journal report on hospitals' overhaul of emergency rooms.

Related Articles on Emergency Departments:
New Thinking to Increase Emergency Department Capacity Without Major Construction

80% of ED Physicians Report Increase in Patient Visits

Hospitals May Profit From Small Reductions in ED Boarding Time





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