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Leaving against medical advice: Facing the issue in the emergency department
Author(s) -
Monico Edward P.,
Schwartz Ian
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of healthcare risk management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.221
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 2040-0861
pISSN - 1074-4797
DOI - 10.1002/jhrm.20009
Subject(s) - emergency department , against medical advice , documentation , medical emergency , legal advice , liability , medical advice , medicine , advice (programming) , emergency physician , family medicine , psychiatry , political science , law , pediatrics , computer science , programming language
Patients leaving the emergency department (ED) against medical advice (AMA) represent 0.1% to 2.7% of all ED patients. These patients create significant angst for emergency physicians because these patients frequently have serious underlying medical pathology and tend to represent a higher‐than‐average source of medical‐legal liability than other ED patients. This article attempts to mitigate these risks by reviewing what we know about AMA encounters from the ED and providing documentation guidelines for the encounter.