The American journal of emergency medicine
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Previous studies showed variability in the use of diagnostic and therapeutic resources for children with febrile acute respiratory tract infections (ARTI), including antibiotics. Unnecessary antibiotic use has important public and individual health outcomes, but missed antibiotic prescribing also has important consequences. We sought to determine factors associated with antibiotic prescribing in pediatric ARTI, specifically those with pneumonia. ⋯ For pediatric patients presenting to the ED with pneumonia and ARTI requiring antibiotics, we found that black race was an independent predictor of antibiotic underuse.
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This study aimed to validate the criteria for early critical care resource (CCR) use as an outcome predictor for seriously injured patients triaged in the field by comparing the effectiveness of the criteria for early CCR use with that of criteria defined by an Injury Severity Score (ISS) >15. ⋯ The early CCR use criteria demonstrated better performance than the ISS >15 criteria in the prediction of mortality in EMS-ST patients.