The ELM Risk & Safety Exchange is a subscription-based program that provides continuing education to subscribers via email. Subscribers receive a case situation with accompanying teaching principles and a follow-up quiz twice per month. The program provides up to 12 hours of AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)TM*. When subscribers receive the Exchange email in their inbox, they can simply click on the enclosed link and are automatically directed to their ELM accounts to complete a short quiz to gain their Continuing Medical Education (CME) certificates. The case studies may be stockpiled in the subscribers' accounts and completed in any order and at any time throughout the year.

The ELM Risk & Safety Exchange covers a broad range of specialties; each case is used to demonstrate errors that resulted in harm to patients and compensable damages owed by a provider or an organization. All ELM cases have been drawn from actual appellate court cases or those our physician-attorneys have worked on personally.
 
Here are some examples of recent issues:

-Discontinued Care: Laryngospasm During Induction
Issue: What conduct is required when transferring the care of a patient to another physician in an emergency situation?
 
-Duties to Non Patients: Transfusion Causes Blood Incompatibility
Issue: What is a physician's responsibility for communicating a medical error likely to result in a future adverse outcome?
 
-Standards of Care: Oral Lesions Treated as Osteomyelitis
Issue: What is a physician's duty to rule out serious conditions with a differential diagnosis?
 
-Consultation & Referral: Unnecessary Laminectomies
Issue: What is the purpose of assessing the clinical performance of a physician?

 

 

Nurses Exposed to Greater Liability

ELM Exchange, Inc., a leader in educating healthcare providers about risk and patient safety.

Nurses are assuming greater clinical responsibility as they expand into specialized roles, such as certified nurse anesthetist, nurse practitioner and certified nurse midwife. Increased responsibility and accountability ultimately leaves nurses open to greater liability. Globally, there is a higher level of focus on the nurse's advocacy role in ensuring patient safety. In the past, the physician, once considered "captain of the ship," insulated nurses from being named in malpractice claims; this is no longer the case. Conventional notions concerning the division of responsibility between physicians and nurses are disappearing, which presents new and different challenges for both nurses and the healthcare systems in which they work.

 

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Case of the Month: Infusing Medication into Arterial Line

ISSUE: Does a nurse have a duty to question a physician's order that she believes to pose a threat to patient welfare? 

CLINICAL SITUATION: During hospitalization after cardiac surgery, a 16-year-old patient was administered intravenous promethazine for nausea and vomiting. An arterial line in the radial artery monitored the patient's blood pressure and blood gases. When the antecubital intravenous line infiltrated, the nurse paged a resident to restart the line so that the patient could receive a noontime dose.

Contact us to find out how to receive continued access to these emailed cases by implementing an ELM education program.