Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
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Emerg Med Australas · Oct 2015
ReviewReview article: Systematic review of three key strategies designed to improve patient flow through the emergency department.
To explore the literature regarding three key strategies designed to promote patient throughput in the ED. CINAHL, Medline, PubMed, Scopus and Australian Government databases were searched for articles published between 1980 and 2014 using the key search terms ED flow/throughput, ED congestion, crowding, overcrowding, models of care, physician-assisted triage, medical assessment units, nurse practitioner, did not wait (DNW) and ED length of stay (LOS). Abstracts and articles not published in English and articles published before 1980 were excluded from the review. ⋯ Advanced practice nursing roles, physician-assisted triage and medical assessment units are models of care that can positively impact ED throughput. They have been shown to decrease ED LOS and DNW rates. Confounding factors, such as site specific staffing requirements, patient acuity and rest-of-hospital processes, can also impact on patient throughput through the ED.
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Emerg Med Australas · Oct 2015
Acceptability of the flipped classroom approach for in-house teaching in emergency medicine.
To evaluate the relative acceptability of the flipped classroom approach compared with traditional didactics for in-house teaching in emergency medicine. ⋯ The flipped classroom shows promise as an acceptable approach to in-house emergency medicine teaching.
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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.