Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
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Emerg Med Australas · Dec 2023
ReviewReview article: Detaining patients against their will: Can duty of care be used to justify detention and restraint in emergency departments?
Every day in EDs, clinicians are faced with situations where they need to decide whether to detain a patient for assessment and treatment. For patients who meet the relevant criteria, provisions of mental health legislation can be used. ⋯ This article briefly explores this complex area of law, including the relevant legislation, common law principles and grey areas. It also proposes an approach to decision-making in this area.
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Emerg Med Australas · Dec 2023
ReviewReview article: Scoping review of the characteristics and outcomes of adults presenting to the emergency department during heatwaves.
As a result of climate change heatwaves are expected to increase in frequency and intensity and will have detrimental impacts on human health globally. EDs are often the critical point of care for acute heat illnesses and other conditions associated with heat exposure. Existing literature has focused on heatwave-related hospitalisation and mortality. ⋯ Outcomes including hospitalisation and mortality rates after ED admissions showed positive associations with heatwaves. The heatwaves resulting from climate change will place increasing demands on EDs providing care for increasingly susceptible populations. Significant public heatwave planning across multiple sectors is required to reduce the risk of overwhelming EDs with these patients.
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Emerg Med Australas · Dec 2023
Initial experience of a Priority Primary Care Centre in metropolitan Melbourne.
To report the initial experience of a newly built Priority Primary Care Centre (PPCC) from the ED perspective. ⋯ The PPCC enabled re-direction of a small proportion of ED presentations. Early results suggest that such patients can be adequately selected and managed at PPCCs.
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Emerg Med Australas · Dec 2023
Medical student deployment to a single metropolitan hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic: A mixed methods analysis.
To explore student and staff satisfaction with the use of medical students as a surge workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic. ⋯ The results of the present study provide insight into the use of medical students as an emergency surge workforce. Responses from medical students and staff suggested that the project was beneficial for both groups as well as for overall departmental performance. These findings are likely to be translatable beyond the COVID-19 pandemic setting.
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Emerg Med Australas · Dec 2023
Comment Observational StudyEvaluating the use of the ABCD2 score as a clinical decision aid in the emergency department: Retrospective observational study.
Clinical decision aids (CDAs) can help clinicians with patient risk assessment. However, there is little data on CDA calculation, interpretation and documentation in real-world ED settings. The ABCD2 score (range 0-7) is a CDA used for patients with transient ischaemic attack (TIA) and assesses risk of stroke, with a score of 0-3 being low risk. The aim of this study was to describe ABCD2 score documentation in patients with an ED diagnosis of TIA. ⋯ The ABCD2 score was documented in less than half of eligible patients. When documented, clinicians were generally accurate with their calculation and application of the ABCD2. No independent predictors of ABCD2 documentation were identified.