The American journal of emergency medicine
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Hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) is defined as severe nausea and vomiting in pregnancy and considered as one of the most frequent causes to emergency department (ED) admissions. Previous research has shown that HG is associated with systemic inflammation, but there have been no prospective studies to explore this link. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of inflammation in HG pathophysiology and to investigate the association between severity of HG and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and CRP in patients who were admitted to ED with nausea and vomiting. ⋯ NLR and PLR are easily obtained and routinely used diagnostic tools for various inflammatory diseases. Measurement of this markers might provide useful information in HG pathogenesis and diagnosis.
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Inpatient hallway beds are one solution to mitigate emergency department (ED) crowding due to boarding of admitted patients. Alternative Care Areas (AltCA) beds are located in inpatient hallways, cardiac catheterization lab, and endoscopy. We examined whether AltCA beds were associated with increased risk of patient safety and quality outcomes: transfer to Intensive Care Unit (ICU), mortality, hospital-acquired infections (HAI), falls, and 72-hour hospital readmission. ⋯ Patients in AltCA beds did not have increased risk of patient safety and quality outcomes but rather decreased risk of transfer to ICU and HAI than standard inpatient beds.
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We sought to evaluate whether the quality of coordination between physicians transferring comatose cardiac arrest survivors to a high-volume cardiac arrest center for targeted temperature management (TTM) was associated with timeliness of care. ⋯ In this sample of patients transferred for TTM, we found that RC as a measure of care coordination, was reliable. Higher quality care coordination for cardiac arrest survivors was associated with faster physician acceptance. Future work using a larger cohort should explore if higher RC among a broader set of stakeholders (physicians, EMS, families, etc.) is associated with timeliness measures after adjusting for other factors, to better understand how the quality of care coordination impacts timeliness of care and patient outcomes.
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The purpose of this study was to test the efficacy of prehospital administration of tranexamic acid (TXA) to injured patients on mortality, thromboembolic events and need for blood transfusion in a level 1 trauma center. ⋯ Prehospital TXA administration is associated with less in-hospital blood transfusion and massive transfusion protocol (MTP). There is no significant increase in the thromboembolic events and mortality, however, further evaluation in larger clinical trials is needed.
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The Toxicology Investigator's Consortium (ToxIC) maintains a prospective case registry of all patients that have been managed at the bedside by medical toxicologists. We set out to characterize the differences in toxicological suicide attempts between men and women among adult patients with poisonings managed by medical toxicologists. ⋯ In our study, we found that there were more females than males who attempted suicide by self-poisoning; and more of them used pharmaceuticals than males. In contrast, a greater number of males used nonpharmaceuticals such as alcohol. We did not find large sex-differences in suicide completion rates, routes of administration, or subsequent symptomologies. In summary, sex-based differences were observed between adult patients with suicidal-intent exposures/ingestions managed at the bedside by medical toxicologists.