The American journal of emergency medicine
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Demographic shifts and care delivery system evolution affect the number of Emergency Department (ED) visits and associated costs. Recent aggregate trends in ED visit rates and charges between 2010 and 2016 have not been evaluated. ⋯ The rate of ED visits per 1000 persons and the mean charge per ED visit increased significantly between 2010 and 2016. Mean charges increased for both high- and low-acuity clinical categories. Visits for the 5 most common clinical categories comprise about 30% of ED visits, and may represent focus areas for increasing the value of ED care.
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Multicenter Study
Electronic medical record-based interventions to encourage opioid prescribing best practices in the emergency department.
Overdose from opioids has reached epidemic proportions. Large healthcare systems can utilize existing technology to encourage responsible opioid prescribing practices. Our study measured the effects of using the electronic medical record (EMR) with direct clinician feedback to standardize opioid prescribing practices within a large healthcare system. ⋯ A multi modal approach using EMR interventions which provide real time data and direct feedback to clinicians can facilitate appropriate opioid prescribing.
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Acute appendicitis is the most common abdominal complaint in the emergency department. This study was made in order to determine whether there is any evidence to support the practice of inquiring about pain over speed bumps in patient suspected to have acute appendicitis and to discover its predictive power as a diagnostic sign. ⋯ The pain over speed bump can be considered as a significant "rule out" criterion of appendicitis due to the high sensitivity observed in this study. However, with its low specificity, many patients with this sign would not undoubtedly have appendicitis, meaning it is a poor "rule-in" test.