Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2016
ReviewReview article: Staff perception of the emergency department working environment: Integrative review of the literature.
Employees in EDs report increasing role overload because of critical staff shortages, budgetary cuts and increased patient numbers and acuity. Such overload could compromise staff satisfaction with their working environment. This integrative review identifies, synthesises and evaluates current research around staff perceptions of the working conditions in EDs. ⋯ A key finding was that perceptions of working environment varied across clinical staff and study location, but that high levels of autonomy and teamwork offset stress around high pressure and high volume workloads. The large range of tools used to assess staff perception of working environment limits the comparability of the studies. A dearth of intervention studies around enhancing working environments in EDs limits the capacity to recommend evidence-based interventions to improve staff morale.
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2016
Can prehospital Modified Early Warning Score identify non-trauma patients requiring life-saving intervention in the emergency department?
We aim to investigate whether prehospital Modified Early Warning Score (MEWS) can identify non-trauma patients requiring life-saving intervention (LSI) within 4 h of presentation to the ED. ⋯ Prehospital MEWS is useful in identifying non-trauma patients requiring LSI within 4 h of ED presentation. This may in turn enhance the triage accuracy in the ED in addition to clinical assessment.
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2016
Paediatric critical procedures in the emergency department: Incidence, trends and the physician experience.
To analyse and provide current data surrounding paediatric critical procedures performed in three EDs of a single Victorian health network. ⋯ Critical procedures in children occur infrequently. Clinical exposure in the ED is therefore unreliable as the sole source of experience for critical procedures.
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2016
Multicenter StudyIs a national time target for emergency department stay associated with changes in the quality of care for acute asthma? A multicentre pre-intervention post-intervention study.
There is debate whether targets for ED length of stay introduced to reduce ED overcrowding are helpful or harmful, as focus on a process target may divert attention from clinical care. Our objective was to investigate the effect of a national ED target in Aotearoa New Zealand on the recommended care for acute asthma as this is known to suffer in overcrowded departments. ⋯ Introduction of the target was not associated with a change in times to steroids in ED, although more patients received steroids in ED indicating closer adherence to recommended practice.