Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
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Emerg Med Australas · Aug 2012
Case ReportsToxic cocktail: methanol poisoning in a tourist to Indonesia.
Methanol poisoning has become very uncommon in Australasia with regulations that have reduced its retail availability. This report describes a young tourist who developed sudden onset visual failure and rapid breathing 2 days after ingestion of a complimentary local drink called Arrack when travelling in Indonesia. ⋯ The cocktail was consumed at a popular tourist bar but is likely to have been mixed from home-brewed or 'moonshine' alcohol tainted with methanol. The aetiology of methanol poisoning, its optic toxicology and therapeutic measures are discussed, as is the concerning number of methanol poisoning cases among tourists to Indonesia over recent years.
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Emerg Med Australas · Aug 2012
Performance of the New South Wales Ambulance Service major trauma transport protocol (T1) at an inner city trauma centre.
To evaluate the performance of a newly implemented prehospital trauma triage (T1) protocol in New South Wales for patients transported to an inner city major trauma centre. ⋯ The sensitivity and undertriage rates associated with the T1 protocol indicate the ongoing need for secondary triage at designated trauma centres and refinement of the protocol to include age as a criterion.
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Emerg Med Australas · Aug 2012
'Lessons learned': A comparative case study analysis of an emergency department response to two burns disasters.
The Royal Perth Hospital (RPH; Perth, Australia) has been the receiving facility for burns patients in two separate disasters. In 2002, RPH received 28 severely injured burns patients after the Bali bombing, and in 2009 RPH received 23 significantly burnt patients as a result of an explosion on board a foreign vessel in the remote Ashmore Reef Islands (840 km west of Darwin). The aim of this paper is to identify the interventions developed following the Bali bombing in 2002 and review their effectiveness of their implementation in the subsequent burns disaster. ⋯ There were a number of lessons observed from the Bali experience in 2002 that have led to improvements in practice and lessons learned.
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Emerg Med Australas · Aug 2012
Senior Streaming Assessment Further Evaluation after Triage zone: a novel model of care encompassing various emergency department throughput measures.
Access block (AB) and hospital overcrowding adversely affect ED functionality. ED throughput measures have been described in the literature with positive impacts on key performance indicators (KPIs)--time to first seen, did-not-wait rates, off-stretcher times for ambulances and ED length of stay figures. In this study, we aimed to assess the impact of a new model of care, the Senior Streaming Assessment Further Evaluation after Triage (SAFE-T) zone concept on ED performance indicators and statistical outcomes. ⋯ The SAFE-T zone model of care involving multiple ED throughput measures achieved improvements in ED performance despite AB and hospital overcrowding.
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Emerg Med Australas · Aug 2012
National Coroners Information System: a valuable source of lessons for emergency medicine.
To interrogate the National Coroners Information System (NCIS) to determine the recurrent themes among coroners' recommendations that aimed to increase the safety of ED care. ⋯ The NCIS data theme analysis identifies important high-risk patients and presenting complaints. These should be incorporated into emergency physician training. EDs should review the coronial recommendations to ensure that, where possible, they have been adopted.