Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
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Emerg Med Australas · Oct 2015
Effect of multifaceted interventions on reducing return visits within 72 h after non-traumatic emergency department visits.
The objective of the present study is to develop new multifaceted interventions to reduce return visits (RVs) based on identified risk factors related to RVs in the ED and to compare the RV rate before and after the implementation of the intervention. ⋯ Multifaceted interventions based on identified risk factors for early RV after ED discharge had a positive effect on reducing RVs and the admission rate after RVs for adult patients within 72 h of non-traumatic ED visits.
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Emerg Med Australas · Oct 2015
Assessing the damage control resuscitation: Development, drivers and direction.
Damage control resuscitation (DCR) has become a more widely adopted acute management strategy over the past decade. A cornerstone of this strategy is the performance of an initial limited surgical intervention for the control of active bleeding and contamination. ⋯ This damage control surgery itself is completed judiciously to allow a period of resuscitative stabilisation before later definitive surgical solutions. This discussion describes the three further principles of DCR and then explores the rationale and drivers behind the development of this approach.
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Emerg Med Australas · Oct 2015
Tyranny of distance and rural prehospital care: Is there potential for a national rural responder network?
Critical illness intersects with the workload of rural doctors in Australia, mostly via their on-call responsibilities to rural hospitals. A significant proportion of these are prehospital incidents - vehicle crashes, farming injuries, bushfire etc. ⋯ Ambulance services in rural areas are often volunteer based, and with increasing remoteness via the 'tyranny of distance' comes the likelihood of increased delay in arrival of specialist retrieval services. Potential exists to utilise rural clinicians to respond to prehospital incidents in certain defined circumstances, as suggested by a recent survey of rural doctors.
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The present study aims to determine and describe the involvement of Australian EDs in antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) and the role of Emergency Medicine Pharmacists (EMPs). ⋯ The ED can be a focus for AMS and is at many sites surveyed. The EMP can provide an important role in this programme.