It turns out, a whopping 78 percent of patients don’t fully understand the care and discharge instructions they receive in the emergency department — and the vast majority of them are not even aware that they do not understand what doctors have told them, according to a study published this month in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
“The bottom line is that we need better strategies for identifying patients who are having difficulty understanding their care and instructions in the emergency department,” said Kirsten Engel of Northwestern University in Chicago who authored the study. “It is disturbing that so many patients do not understand their post-emergency department care, and that they do not even recognize where the gaps in understanding are. Patients who fail to follow discharge instructions may have a greater likelihood of complications after leaving the emergency department.”
Whose job is it to make sure emergency room patients understand the take-home instructions doctors give them? Should the onus be on the patient or his health care team? Or both?
Just read Carrie’s posting about her losing streak. It all has a bright side. One of the players at the poker table we were at had won big — twice. In the past year, he’d won $45,000 two times playing Texas Hold ‘em. He was so excited about the money, he had the winning hands tatooed up his right arm. While some tattoo parlor is poorer from Carrie’s losses, Carrie’s arms are still lovely.
Well, I guess I’ll be keeping my day job.
Just lost all my spending cash and then some in Vegas. Lost the $100 a businessman gave me to bet. Lost my editor’s editor’s money. And lost the $30 bucks Molly McMillin gave me out of pity at the poker table when she was on a winning streak.
But, as the businessman tells me, just look at it as a seed money. I’ve got it planted. Now all I have to do is go back out and get it.
Here’s what sounds on the surface like an ominous report on the immediate future of oil prices: an attack on Shell pipelines in Nigeria.
As the article points out, these attacks have been a partial driver for the run-up in oil prices on the commodities markets. So, I cringed a little bit this morning as I took a peek at the latest price.
Imagine my surprise at 9:11 a.m. when I saw oil is down $1.06 according to Kansas.com’s ticker. An hour later, oil was down $3.11.
Now, I’m sure all of you remember the raft of lectures that have been delivered by government energy officials and oil company executives: It’s supply and demand, stupid, along with all the uncertainty surrounding the oil distribution system.
Uh-huh.
Sure, there’s plenty of time today for speculators – the real driver behind the run-up – to ratchet today’s trading into the stratosphere.
But the early morning today brings yet another blow to the credibility of the alibis that flowed like crude as per-barrel prices doubled over the last year.