Pediatric emergency care
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Pediatric emergency care · Jun 2006
Risk of pediatric back-over injuries in residential driveways by vehicle type.
Research suggests that children experience driveway back-over injuries at a significant rate and the severity of the resulting injuries differ by type of vehicle. Yet, no US study attempted to quantify "back-over risk" for classes of vehicles because of the difficulties with determining exposure. Using vehicle registration information, we set out to estimate the relative risk of driveway back-over injuries to children by type of vehicle. ⋯ Findings suggest that when assessing driveway back-over injuries, larger high-profile vehicles are associated with a higher incidence and severity of injuries when compared with injuries resulting from passenger cars.
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Pediatric emergency care · Jun 2006
Case ReportsLatex-induced anaphylactic reaction in a child with spina bifida.
Allergy to natural rubber latex presents a unique challenge in the emergency department. Latex allergy in children is most commonly identified in patients who have undergone multiple operations for neural tube defects or genitourinary anomalies. We report a life-threatening anaphylactic reaction to latex in a patient with spina bifida even with latex-free precautions.
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Pediatric emergency care · Jun 2006
Visit-level acuity and resource-based relative value unit utilization in a pediatric emergency department.
There is currently limited data on the distribution of evaluation and management (E&M) codes and resource utilization in pediatric emergency departments. We sought to ascertain the following: (1) the distribution of visit-level acuity among patients who sought care in our pediatric emergency department (PED); (2) mean relative value units per physician hour (RVUs/h) as a measure of health care provider productivity; (3) the extent of correlation between the mean number of patients seen per hour and RVUs/h; and (4) the difference in RVU's generated using observation codes versus a higher level E&M code for diagnoses that require an extended level of service. ⋯ Our descriptive study provides PED benchmarking data on E&M code distribution and RVU utilization. RVU's/h may serve as a reliable measure of productivity. Although the use of observational codes in the PED requires additional documentation, their use for select diagnoses may appropriately reflect the level of service and have a favorable impact on the total number of RVU's generated.
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Pediatric emergency care · May 2006
Too long in the tooth: a descriptive study of adults presenting to a pediatric emergency department.
To describe the demographics, presenting complaints, diagnoses, and disposition of adults presenting to an Australian pediatric emergency department. It was hypothesized that most patients would be younger than 20 years, with low acuity complaints predominantly related to minor injuries resulting in a low admission rate. ⋯ Adult presentations were not infrequent. Twenty patients (41.7%) were within 1 year of the age cutoff at Princess Margaret Hospital. Although 45.8% of presentations had a low acuity, the majority of patients had Australasian Triage Scale scores of 2 or 3. The presentations were heterogeneous in nature, with injuries accounting for a large proportion. Most patients were referred for further care, but a minority were not compliant with follow-up instructions. There was a low admission rate.