Annals of emergency medicine
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Transgender, transsexual, or transitioned (trans) people have reported avoiding medical care because of negative experiences or fear of such experiences. The extent of trans-specific negative emergency department (ED) experiences, and of ED avoidance, has not been documented. ⋯ This first exploratory analysis of ED avoidance, utilization, and experiences by trans persons documented ED avoidance and possible unmet need for emergency care among trans Ontarians. Additional research, including validation of measures, is needed.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Trial to Examine Text Message-Based mHealth in Emergency Department Patients With Diabetes (TExT-MED): A Randomized Controlled Trial.
Increasingly, low-income inner-city patients with diabetes utilize emergency departments (EDs) for acute and chronic care. We seek to determine whether a scalable, low-cost, unidirectional, text message-based mobile health intervention (TExT-MED) improves clinical outcomes, increases healthy behaviors, and decreases ED utilization in a safety net population. ⋯ The TExT-MED program did not result in a statistically significant improvement in Hb A1C. However, trends toward improvement in the primary outcome of Hb A1C and other secondary outcomes, including quality of life, were observed, the most pronounced being improved medication adherence. TExT-MED also decreased ED utilization. These findings were magnified in the Spanish-speaking subgroup. Technologies such as TExT-MED represent highly scalable, low-cost, and widely accessible solutions for safety-net ED populations.