The American journal of emergency medicine
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Comparative Study
Predictors of clinically relevant differences between noninvasive versus arterial blood pressure.
Blood pressure (BP) measurements are important for managing patients with hypertensive emergencies (HE). Previous studies showed that there was significant difference between IABP and NIBP but no information whether these differences changed management. Our study investigated the factors associated with the differences affecting BP management of patients with HE. ⋯ There was a large difference between IABP and NIBP among patients with hypertensive emergencies. Up to 30% of patients had clinically relevant differences. Patients with sICH were more likely to have differences affecting BP management. Further studies are needed to confirm our observation.
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Meta Analysis
Effect of antiplatelet treatments on patients with COVID-19 infection: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
Despite the rationale that early anti-platelet would lower the risk of major organ dysfunction, the effectiveness of this approach remains controversial. Therefore, we perform a systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate the effect of antiplatelet treatments on patients with COVID-19 infection. An electronic search was carried out in Pubmed, Embase, Cochrane library, Web of Science, MEDLINE, Wanfang and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). ⋯ The meta-analysis showed antiplatelet agents were not associated with higher risk of severe COVID-19 disease (OR = 0.98, 95%CI: 0.64 to 1.50, P = 0.94; I 2 = 65%), while an adjusted analysis indicated that antiplatelet agents was not associated with an increased risk of mortality (OR = 0.65, 95%CI: 0.40 to 1.06, P = 0.498; I 2 = 0%). The results of this study reveal that while there is no significant benefit on mortality demonstrated with the use of antiplatelet agents, the upper bound of the confidence interval suggests that there is unlikely to be a compelling risk of harm associated with this practice. The benefit and risk of the use of antiplatelet agents should be fully considered especially in the presence of thrombocytopenia status in patients with COVID-19.
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Multicenter Study
Acuity patterns of heart failure among emergency departments in a large health system.
The prognostic importance of Emergency Heart Failure Mortality Risk Grade (EHMRG) score in assessing short term mortality in Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) patients has been validated in the past, however, few studies have examined acuity patterns in the CHF population across healthcare settings. We aim to understand acuity patterns of CHF patients across a large health system for better resource utilization. ⋯ Academic hospitals had a higher number of Acute Heart Failure (AHF) patients, larger number of low acuity patients, higher admission rates, but less revisit rates to the ED as compared to community hospitals. We suggest acuity specific interventions will help decrease admission and revisit rates.
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The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of two types of cervical collars (Philadelphia and Miami-J) on pulmonary function and ventilation in healthy volunteers through spirometry, peak flow meter, and capnograph. ⋯ In summary, we noted a statistically significant expiratory flow obstruction after both the Philadelphia and Miami-J cervical collar. These changes were not clinically significant in healthy volunteers, albeit may have ramifications in patients with pre-existing respiratory compromise.