emergency-med

© taberandrew

If you have ever been to an emergency room, you know how crazy it can be. People with a variety of ailments and injuries go in and out of there every day. Even for the most prepared of us, we may encounter the need at some point in our lives to visit the emergency room. But amid the hustle and bustle of the emergency room setting, there are some things you should know before going in.

1. Timing
For most emergency rooms, the busiest time starts right around 6:00 p.m., just when people are getting out of work and school. Mondays are usually the worst day for emergency rooms. If you can help it at all, head the emergency room early in the morning, generally before 9:00 a.m. You'll be guaranteed to get attention more quickly if you go during the slow periods.

2. Priority
One thing emergency room nurses hate most is cleaning up waiting rooms. Generally, those visiting who are vomiting a lot will get priority for getting a room so their sickness can be contained and the nurses don't have to worry about cleaning up vomit out of the waiting room.

3. Understanding
When going into an emergency room, make sure it truly is an emergency. Having a small cut on your finger is only going to get you funny looks from the medical staff there. Only visit the emergency room if there is something drastically wrong that cannot be fixed at home, like a serious injury or excessive bleeding. Going in to the emergency room with a non-serious health concern is a waste of the nurses' time, which is precious when working in an emergency room.

4. Don't Blame
If you happen to get the emergency room when it is crowded, don't be rude and blame the uninsured people for taking up most of the nurses' time and waiting room space. The fact is that the uninsured only make up about one-fifth of total emergency room visits. Blaming these people, or being erratic in any way, will only bump you back on the list for being offensive.

5. Never Lie
If your injury is flat out embarrassing, don't be afraid to tell your nurse. If you lie, he or she will be able to tell easily. Emergency medical staffing services have placed these individuals here that have dealt with many cases, including some results of stupid mistakes, so lying to them will only damage your credibility with them.

6. Be Brief
As mentioned, you don't want to waste the medical staff's time. Don't blame or talk bad about your last doctor, don't give the full story on your problem. Just tell them what's wrong, how it happened, and how it feels. They will take care of the rest.
Remember that the emergency room is for serious medical issues that need immediate help. If you can resolve the issue from home, it will not only save you the time of driving to the emergency room and waiting, it will also save you a lot of money.

© The U.S. Army

To fight malaria, HP and the non-profit Positive Innovation for the Next Generation (PING) unveil a new collaboration at the United Nations Social Innovation Summit. Through the collaboration, mobile health monitoring technology will be used to combat malaria outbreaks.

The program equips healthcare workers in Botswana with HP Palm Pre 2 smartphones. The webOS-based technology on Palm Pres will help the healthcare workers to collect data and quickly notify the Ministry of Health about a malaria outbreak. Further, they will be able to tag both data and disease surveillance information with a GPS coordinate. Mascom Wireless provides the connectivity.
This isn't the only program with which HP is involved. As part of the alliance with African social enterprise mPedigree, HP fights counterfeit malaria drugs through a mobile phone and cloud services solution.

© kafka4prez

Cholera outbreaks have been reported recently in several countries, including Malaysia, Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Papua New Guinea. Precautions including travel vaccination, hand washing, and use of an alcohol based hand gel should be taken by visitors to these regions.

Those who are planning to visit for a long time or traveling into affected areas should especially consider vaccination, which involves two drinks given 1 to 6 weeks apart. In the Philippines, measles is a concern with more than 2,000 cases being reported in the first three months of the year. An immunization campaign is underway to try to stop the increasing incidence of the disease in the that country. Measles is easily spread through coughing and sneezing. Travelers should ensure that they have been fully vaccinated prior to visiting affected areas.