Closed ERs May Impact Patient Mortality

SAN FRANCISCO — Patients admitted to a hospital located near another hospital with a closed emergency department have a greater chance of dying, according to a California study published in the August issue of Health Affairs.
Researchers believe that the closure of emergency departments puts pressure on nearby ERs as well as patients. This could be due to increased travel time to farther emergency departments, as well as increased wait times or crowding in ERs with bigger populations.

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Headwall Wins International Design Award

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — A headwall designed exclusively for the University of California-San Diego Jacobs Medical Center received first prize in the Industrial and Life Science Design category for the International Design Awards (IDA). Overland Park-based Shield Casework, the manufacturer of the headwall, made the announcement July 31.

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Eric Johnson

Eric Johnson has been promoted to the newly created position of executive managing director of Transwestern’s national health care platform. The firm’s health care specialists provide agency leasing, tenant advisory, property management, capital markets and development services for this particular client base.

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Amber M. Gillen

Stalco Construction has promoted Amber M. Gillen to project manager. Gillen joined Stalco as an assistant project manager in 2012 and has since managed several significant health care projects in the New York area. Gillen’s responsibilities include complete project management in pre-construction, delivery and close-out phases.

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Fall Alarm

Hygia Health Services now offers bed and chair fall alarms in its catalog of single-use, non-invasive devices around the patient room. The bed and chair fall alarms are part of Hygia’s essential clinical commodities (ECCs) and are FDA-approved. The company cleans, tests, disinfects and repackages items using FDA-approved processes to provide hospital products such as cerebral-somatic sensors, blood pressure cuffs, SCD/DVT sleeves, pulse ox sensors, ECG leads, pneumatic tourniquets, infusor bags, splints, masks and now bed alarms.

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Rubber Flooring

Nora Systems has re-colorized its noraplan eco line with 16 new colors. The eco-friendly, economical floor covering uses recycled materials to create a smooth, high-performance floor covering that features a two-tone randomly scattered color chip pattern. More than 86 million square feet of the flooring have been sold since its introduction in 1999 for use in a variety of applications, including health care. The noraplan eco does not contain any PVC, plasticizers or halogens and is Greenguard certified for low VOC emissions.

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