Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
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Emerg Med Australas · Oct 2019
Australian private emergency departments can assist ambulance services by taking public emergency patients during surge and disasters.
We describe a novel ambulance diversion programme, piloted in Victoria. This article discusses creating increased emergency capacity during surge or disasters by utilising private EDs, tested during a recent thunderstorm asthma disaster and an influenza epidemic. ⋯ It is feasible to create surge capacity in private EDs for public ambulance patients. Other states could consider this option to help manage health disasters.
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Emerg Med Australas · Oct 2019
Animal-vehicle collisions in Victoria, Australia: An under-recognised cause of road traffic crashes.
Non-fatal injuries sustained from animal-vehicle collisions are a globally under-recognised road safety issue, with limited data on these crash types. The present study aimed to quantify the number and causes of major trauma events resulting from animal-vehicle collisions. ⋯ Development of systematic recording methods of animal-vehicle collisions will improve reporting of these crash types to assist future studies in implementing effective countermeasures.
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Emerg Med Australas · Oct 2019
Daring to be wise: We are black boxes, and artificial intelligence will be the solution.
Emergency physicians seek wisdom through personal resilience, deliberate reasoning, clinical consensus and reflective practice. However, there is a limit to how useful psychological training, clinical guidelines and audit initiatives can be in the face of inherent human fallibility, increasing system complexity and escalating demand. Wisdom may be more easily attained through the careful design of new technology and this should be a priority for the emergency medicine community.
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Emerg Med Australas · Oct 2019
Observational StudyRetrospective descriptive observational study of patients who presented to an Australian hospital emergency department with neck soft tissue injury.
To describe clinical presentation and management of neck soft tissue injury in an Australian ED. ⋯ There is large practice variation in management of neck soft tissue injury in ED. Over half of the patients received CT scans with modest yield. Opioids were commonly used both in ED and on discharge. There is need for a standard management plan to be developed for patients presenting with acute neck soft tissue injury.
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Emerg Med Australas · Oct 2019
Security interventions are frequently undocumented in emergency department clinical notes.
To compare the documentation of security interventions in ED presentations between clinical notes and security records. ⋯ The rate of documentation of security interventions in clinical notes was less than 50%. Documentation of critical information, including alerts and risks, in the clinical notes is an essential component of communication that the multi-disciplinary team use to ensure patient safety. Strategies aimed at improving the documentation of security interventions in clinical notes will help to optimise risk management and the safety of patients, staff and visitors along the continuum of care.