Principles Of Quality Emergency Medicine

Quality Emergency Medicine:

What does it actually mean to the Stand Alone ER Patient?

By Steve Ohkravi, MD, MBA, CPE

July 16, 2012

A Stand Alone ER, or any ER practice for that matter, needs to look at their core values as a healthcare institution and lay them out for all staff to see, to learn from and embrace as an every day behavior. It’s a conscious decision for many healthcare professionals, but the very best ER practices start with a very basic commitment to continuing education…for every level of its staff. This process can be very humbling, as well. The Japanese call it, quite simply: Kaizen.

One key tenet of this principle is establishing a Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) initiative, the process by which the practice leadership

 Pediatric and Geriatric healthcare has its own set of requirements; can they treat my kids or my elderly family members?

Other founding principles for a Quality ER Practice are:

 Emergency Room Medicine experience. There simply is no stronger qualification for quality care. A quality ER Practice provider has tens of thousands of hours experience collectively

2 | P a g e among their staff to account for the spot on response time necessary to succinctly practice emergency medicine. However, this qualification is also the essential foundation for the in-field management for ER Operations. I mention this because there is some debate1 about “pre-care” in emergency situations. The Police, Fire Department, Emergency Medical Technicians come in contact with urgently ill patients simply by virtue of their numbers and by them being out on the street. These civil services are undeniably valuable and essential in emergency situations. They are also tempered, optimally, by collaboration those health care professionals experienced

In fact, this constant procedural evaluation process in a non-punitive environment optimally promotes correction and increases patient safety.

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In summary, there is a wide array of factors that lead to (and stage the environment for) quality emergency medicine.

We considered, above:

1. CQI (Continuous Quality Improvement)

2. Collaboration and Cooperation with the greater community of caregivers

3. Eliminations of Barriers to Patient Care

4. ER Experience

5. Embracing Technology

6. Properly Prescribed Lab Work and Testing/Medical Imaging Procedures

7. Procedural Consistency

8. Constant Evaluation

Certainly, the establishment of spot-on patient factors is of paramount importance in the examination process. Exemplary teamwork by all who come in contact with the patient is essential to a quality patient experience, outcomes and satisfaction.

When you add to this definitive recipe for Quality Emergency Care:

a) The highest level of ER staff communication skills, and

b) Detailed patient data/documentation systems…

All the ingredients effectively work in combination to deliver a quality emergency care