Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2015
Self-reported preparedness of New Zealand acute care providers to mass emergencies before the Canterbury Earthquakes: A national survey.
Disasters occur more frequently. Acute care providers are the first to respond to mass emergencies from the healthcare sector. The preparedness of acute care providers in New Zealand to respond to mass emergencies has not been previously studied. ⋯ Almost half of New Zealand acute healthcare providers have no training in dealing with mass emergency events. Training and general awareness of the role during a mass emergency response were the main factors associated with strong self-reported preparedness of acute care providers. The apparent efficacy of training allied to lack of availability means that it should be a national priority.
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2015
Communication between nurses and physicians: Strategies to surviving in the emergency department trenches.
The emergency department (ED) is a challenging and stressful work environment where communication lapses can lead to negative health outcomes. This article offers strategies to Emergency Medicine residents, nurses and staff physicians on how to improve communication to optimize patient care.
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2015
Impact of a structured intern education programme on clinical documentation in the emergency department.
To evaluate the impact of More Learning for Interns in Emergency (MoLIE) on clinical documentation in the ED of a large regional hospital. ⋯ The introduction of MoLIE was associated with a small but statistically significant improvement in documentation, despite an 80% increase in intern placements. These results suggest that structured training programmes have potential to improve intern performance while simultaneously enhancing training capacity. The impact on quality of care requires further evaluation.
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2015
Can a barcode scanner for blood collection improve patient identification integrity in the emergency department? A prospective before-and-after study.
To describe the effect of interventions designed to improve patient identification (PI) during pathology collection in the ED. ⋯ ED staff had poor behaviours for identifying patients and labelling pathology specimens before intervention. These safety behaviours were considered an assumed skill. Education alone improved critical KBs markedly that was further augmented by the armband scanner. The cost to adopt education alone is relatively low compared to the addition of armband scanner technology.