Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Editorial Comment Review
Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and the Utstein style: meeting the customer's needs?
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To compare the emergency physician disposition decisions after observation periods of two, four, and six hours in a single cohort of ED patients with acute intentional ingestion to determine the accuracy of disposition decisions at two and four hours relative to the six-hour period of observation. ⋯ A large subset of overdose patients who are medically cleared after six hours of observation can be identified within two to four hours of presentation. No patient who was believed to be safe for medical clearance at either two or four hours had a complication within the six-hour time period (95% CI = 0% to 1.8%). These data suggest that asymptomatic patients with selected acute intentional ingestions can be released from medical observation in less than six hours.
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Comparative Study
Evaluation of biphasic transthoracic defibrillation in an animal model of prolonged ventricular fibrillation.
To determine whether a biphasic defibrillation waveform (BDW) would produce a superior rate of converting prolonged ventricular fibrillation (VF) into a perfusing rhythm and delay the occurrence of asystole and/or pulseless electrical activity (PEA) during the resuscitation attempt, when compared with a monophasic defibrillation waveform (MDW). ⋯ BDW resulted in a superior rate of ROSC and delay in the occurrence of asystole/ PEA during the resuscitation attempt when compared with MDW.
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Comparative Study
Can sick children tell time?: emergency department presentation patterns of critically ill children.
Children show a consistent pattern of ED use, with the majority of patients presenting during the late afternoon and evening hours. This study evaluated whether such a diurnal pattern also exists for critically ill children and the implications of such a presentation pattern on ED staffing. ⋯ Critically ill children present more uniformly throughout the day and do not have the same presentation patterns as ambulatory children. ED staffing should reflect this difference and not focus pediatric ED services simply on hours of peak pediatric visits.