Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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To assess the effectiveness of an emergency department (ED)-based strategy to identify and counsel selected patients about the importance of an operational smoke detector in the home and to offer a graded recommendation regarding such a strategy. ⋯ Following the criteria of the graded recommendations used for the parent project. a recommendation cannot be made either for or against an ED-based strategy to counsel patients on the importance of smoke detectors. No studies located in our review directly assessed the effectiveness of such a strategy. Based on the retrospective case series study of the potential opportunity for a home fire safety intervention during an emergency medical services visit and the Safe Block Project study, it may be worthwhile to consider further research on the effectiveness of systems-level/structural interventions, with a targeted focus on strategies that attempt to overcome barriers associated with active interventions.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Droperidol vs. prochlorperazine for benign headaches in the emergency department.
To compare the efficacy of droperidol with that of prochlorperazine for the treatment of benign headaches in emergency department (ED) patients. ⋯ Droperidol was more effective than prochlorperazine in relieving pain associated with benign headaches.
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To evaluate the sensitivity of a D-dimer assay as a screening tool for possible traumatic or spontaneous intracranial hemorrhage. If adequately sensitive, the D-dimer assay may potentially permit omission of a more expensive computed tomography (CT) scan of the head when such hemorrhage is clinically suspected. ⋯ Due to the catastrophic nature of missing an intracranial hemorrhage in the emergency department, the D-dimer assay is not adequately sensitive or predictive to use as a screening tool to allow routine omission of head CT scanning.
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To evaluate the prevalence, distribution, and demographics of thoracolumbar (TL) spine injuries following blunt trauma. ⋯ The prevalence of TL injuries in ED blunt trauma patients undergoing TL radiographs is 6.3%. The most commonly injured area of the TL spine is the thoracolumbar junction.
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To explore factors related to emergency department (ED) attendances in Hong Kong, the authors piloted the application of conjoint analysis in eliciting patient preferences regarding ED visits. ⋯ This study demonstrated that Hong Kong patients are receptive to the concept of parallel clinics, and illustrated that conjoint analysis is a rigorous survey technique for eliciting the views of patients on health care services in the ED setting.