ACEP board-approved policy statements highlight the scope of issues being addressed in emergency medicine. New policies are initially distributed to ACEP members via Annals of Emergency Medicine and posted here. In addition, the ACEP Board of Directors has directed that all policy statements undergo automatic review when they are seven years old. Unless a policy still contains relevant information, it will then sunset. Due to the extensive time required to review seven-year-old or older policies, some are still under review.
Approved by the ACEP Board of Directors January 2012
Addressing the Public Safety Dangers Associated with Impaired or Distracted Driving.
Reporting of potentially impaired drivers should be individualized
Avoiding risks to privacy and confidentiality of patients and staff.
“Boarded patient” is defined as a patient who remains in the emergency department after the patient has been admitted to the facility, but has not been transferred to an inpatient unit.
Recommendations for procedural sedation in the ED
Each medical school should include an academic department of emergency medicine
Patient satisfaction surveys can be a valid measure of the patient’s perception of health care
Support for the availability of high quality, fully funded, certified poison centers
Use of order sets does not create a physician-patient relationship.
Improve pain management for patients in all healthcare settings
Mandate an adequate source of funding to ensure appropriate compensation for services or products.
Develop medically directed protocols regarding patients who are assessed in the out-of-hospital setting and subsequently refuse medical treatment and/or transport
Guidelines for emergency physicians in the latter stages of their professional lives.
Sufficient funding to preserve the nation’s fragile emergency care
Democratic groups should be governed by a body that is subject to change by fair and transparent elections
Importance of a PCMH in health care