Journal of emergency nursing : JEN : official publication of the Emergency Department Nurses Association
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Freestanding emergency departments are full-service emergency departments with no attached inpatient facility. ED congestion and patient dissatisfaction may occur as patients requiring admission are waiting for ambulance arrival and transfer. A partnership between a freestanding emergency department and a private ambulance company was developed in order to reduce ambulance response times and ultimately ED length of stay. The aim of this manuscript was to describe the Partnership in Care program and evaluate the program's effectiveness. ⋯ The program did not achieve the primary goal of reducing ED length of stay, however the private EMS workers provided countless hours of patient care to the freestanding ED patients without charge to the freestanding emergency department for the EMS providers' time.
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Application of cricoid pressure (CP) is an important step during rapid sequence intubation. Previous surveys of anesthesia personnel showed a knowledge deficiency in the recommended level of cricoid force. There has been no previous attempt to assess the adequacy of knowledge of ED personnel in the application of CP. The objective of this study was to assess the theoretic knowledge of ED personnel about CP. ⋯ The theoretic knowledge about CP is poor in this survey from staff at a major US teaching hospital. Poor theoretic knowledge could lead to poor technique in the application of CP. More specific education and training are needed to improve the clinical use of CP and possibly increase patient safety.
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South Africa has unenviable rates of violent crime and low rates of conviction and prosecution. Contributing to this is the poor collection of medical evidence by health workers. ⋯ Emergency nurses in South Africa are facing new challenges in acquiring the skills to effectively care for crime victims. It is becoming extremely important for these nurses to correctly manage the forensic evidence, as failure to do so can have far reaching legal consequences.