Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
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Emerg Med Australas · Oct 2024
Effectiveness of a Disability Liaison Officer service in a metropolitan emergency department.
To identify the influence of a Disability Liaison Officer (DLO) service in the ED setting on people with disability (PWD). For this project, PWD included adults with communication disability, intellectual disability or autism spectrum disorder. ⋯ The DLO service was associated with a reduction in ED LOS for PWD. Further assessment of the service using patient- and carer-reported outcome measures and cost-effectiveness studies are indicated.
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Emerg Med Australas · Oct 2024
Supporting clinicians post exposure to potentially traumatic events: Emergency department peer support program evaluation.
Workers in EDs are regularly exposed to potentially traumatic events. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been exponential interest in peer support programs (PSPs) in a range of settings. We describe a PSP implemented in 2017 at University Hospital Geelong (UHG) ED together with results of a survey. ⋯ ED Doctors place high value on the PSP.
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Emerg Med Australas · Oct 2024
A cluster of multi-drug intoxications involving xylazine, benzimidazole opioids (nitazenes) and novel benzodiazepines in South Australia.
To highlight the detection of xylazine and nitrazolam in conjunction with benzimidazole opioids (nitazenes) and other novel benzodiazepines in a cluster of patients after putative heroin use. ⋯ This is the first signal of xylazine and nitrazolam use in Australia. These results demonstrate toxico-surveillance programmes with analytical confirmation of drugs are invaluable in monitoring illicit drug use.
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Emerg Med Australas · Oct 2024
Ambulance offload performance, patient characteristics and disposition for patients offloaded to different areas of the emergency department.
Ambulance transfer of care (TOC) is a key performance indicator for New South Wales EDs, with 90% of ambulances to be offloaded within 30 min of arrival. Nepean Hospital ED has a number of strategies to improve TOC, including ambulatory areas where patients can be offloaded immediately. Offload data are supplied by ambulance and there is no study into its accuracy. The aim is to audit the accuracy of ambulance data of TOC compared to times recorded in the Nepean ED information system, and to examine TOC and patient demographics for different offload destinations. ⋯ Patients arriving by ambulance requiring an acute care bed were likely to be elderly and frail, and suffered substantial ambulance offload delays. Delays to ambulance offload for these patients is likely driven by acute care bed availability and access block.
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Emerg Med Australas · Oct 2024
Risk-benefit analysis of a multi-site radiographer comment model for emergency departments.
Critical/urgent X-ray findings are not always communicated in an appropriate time frame to ED physicians. The practice of radiographers alerting referrers to clinically significant image findings (verbally, via image flags or written comment) is noted internationally but risk assessment data is unavailable in the literature. A hybrid radiographer comment and alert model was piloted in New South Wales and a risk-benefit assessment conducted for timely and safe communication of abnormal X-ray appearances to ED physicians. ⋯ The provision of radiographer alerts with a written comment for ED was found to be low risk to patients in the pilot study. Radiographers communicating directly with the emergency team when abnormal image appearances are detected can reduce diagnostic error and improve patient safety and health outcomes.