Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Observations of an ER nurse on how conflicts of interest trump evidence based medicine

Mention conflict of interest in medicine and the knee jerk response, nearly always, is to raise the issue of the pharmaceutical companies and their influence on doctors. Other conflicts, seldom appreciated, may play a larger role. ER nurse blogger girlvet mentions some of them in ER medicine is a free for all. The wide variations in practice she sees in her ER are anything but evidence based and, in her view, are driven by liability concerns, payer source and coding (the patient comes in with a tummy ache, but find 5 other diagnoses to document and you can code higher).

She warns doctors who may be reading: “you may not like what’s ahead….” Hey, I thought it was pretty good.

Via Kevin MD.

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