Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2020
Proactive review by the emergency department before inter-hospital transfer (the PREVENT study).
To determine the population of patients where patient transfer may be prevented by assessment of a senior ED registrar at the referring hospital. ⋯ This proof-of-concept study suggests that strategies to expand the provision of acute care to outreach within specialist networks and reduce patient transfers should be further explored. An outreach programme for improved acute assessment of patients at the referring hospital particularly after acute trauma may prevent transfers, improving care pathways.
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2020
Observational StudyHow well does the Best Guess method predict children's weight in an emergency department in 2018-2019?
For seriously ill children, weight is often required to direct critical interventions. As it is not always feasible to measure weight in emergencies, age-based weight prediction formulae may be used as an alternative. The Best Guess formulae, derived in Australia, have been shown to be among the most accurate age-based methods in Australian children. They were validated in 2010. The present study aims to re-validate the Best Guess formulae and compare their performance to the previous validation cohort. ⋯ The Best Guess method has not reduced in accuracy as a weight estimation method in emergent situations in this Australian cohort, despite a tendency to slightly over-estimate children's weight. Further study is needed to test the Best Guess method's accuracy in ethnic subgroups.
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2020
Functional outcome and management pathways for adult patients presenting to an Australian health service with distal radius fracture.
Primarily to determine mid-term functional outcome for patients with distal radius fracture (DRF) and to compare this between operative and conservatively managed patients. Secondarily to examine for differences in age, gender and number of instability factors between management groups. ⋯ The mid-term median PRWE score was 18 (IQR 5-36). This was not significantly different between operative and conservatively managed patients. Operation was more likely when four or more instability factors were present.
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2020
Observational StudyRapid Assessment, Planning, Investigations and Discharge: Piloting the introduction of a senior doctor at triage model in an Australian paediatric emergency department.
We implemented a senior doctor at triage (SDT) pilot programme at The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne. We examined the impact on ED length of stay, seen on time and fail to wait (FTW) rates. ⋯ Implementation of a SDT model in a tertiary paediatric ED resulted in an increased proportion of patients being seen on time, having shorter length of stays in the ED and reduced the number of patients who FTW. Further studies are required to determine whether these improvements are sustained over time.