Internal and emergency medicine
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In patients with pneumonia, lung ultrasound is a useful diagnostic and monitoring tool and has been proven to be superior to physical examination and chest X-ray in terms of feasibility and diagnostic accuracy. Guidelines do not address lung ultrasound as part of the diagnostic workup or as monitoring tool which is surprising. ⋯ Various clinical settings are considered, in addition to limitations, pitfalls and advanced techniques. The aim of this paper is to equip the clinician with the necessary knowledge to maximize lung ultrasound in pneumonia as effective diagnostic and monitoring tool.
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The ongoing demographic, epidemiological and social changes are dramatically raising the clinical and care complexity of patients admitted to internal medicine (IM) departments. Collecting evidence for a better characterization of patients is crucial to tailor future interventions based on patient's real needs. The aim of this prospective multicenter study was to describe the complexity of care of patients hospitalized in IM by calculating the complexity of care (ICC) score, through the combination of clinical instability (NEWS score) and care dependency scales (mICD). ⋯ A relevant proportion of IM patients exhibited a high complexity of care. Our data support a model in which approximately 15% of IM beds are designated for clinically unstable patients managed in intermediate care sub-units. The substantial burden of social frailty highlights the urgency of national plans allowing at the same time to cover the needs of not self-sufficient and socially disadvantaged patients, and to efficiently address the issue of emergency department boarding.
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skin lacerations are one of the main causes of children's referral to the emergency department (ED). We introduced in our general ED a pediatric sedo-analgesia protocol (SAP) for suturing skin wounds using LAT gel, a local anesthetic solution of lidocaine, adrenaline and tetracaine, with or without low-dose oral midazolam according to patient's age, to improve the experience of laceration repair. ⋯ The introduction of a LAT gel and low-dose oral midazolam SAP allows an improvement of both the sedo-analgesia provided and the ED operators' suturing experience of skin lacerations in children. Our SAP appeared to be safe and effective, with low cost and high tolerability.
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Burnout in healthcare workers is a global issue, with Emergency Medicine (EM) particularly impacted. Many countries have tried implementing wellness initiatives to reduce burnout and improve wellness. This paper summarizes interventions implemented in Canada to-date with the aim of supporting the design of wellness interventions in EDs globally. ⋯ Examples include educational programs, dedicated sessions for compassion literacy and resilience, critical events debriefing, and optimizing shift schedules. Structured wellness curriculums seem to be effective, and this area warrants further study. Moreover, we identify a need for global collaboration to build wellness programs and for more easily translatable standardized outcome measures for assessing the efficacy of wellness programs in EM.