Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Comparative Study
A survey of academic departments of emergency medicine regarding operation and clinical practice: two years later.
To survey academic departments of emergency medicine (ADEMs) concerning their operation and clinical practice. ⋯ ADEMs continue to experience some very positive trends, namely, increases in ED patient volume, in severity of patient illness, and in net clinical revenue.
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To evaluate the feasibility and safety of initially dispatching only first responders (FRs) to selected low-risk 9-1-1 requests for emergency medical services. First responders are rapidly-responding fire crews on apparatus without transport capabilities, with firefighters trained to at least a FR level and in most cases to the basic emergency medical technician (EMT) level. Low-risk 9-1-1 requests include automatic medical alerts (ALERTs), motor vehicle incidents (MVIs) for which the caller was unable to answer any medical dispatch questions designed to prioritize the call, and 9-1-1 call disconnects (D/Cs). ⋯ Fire apparatus crews trained in the use of AEDs can safely be used to initially respond alone (without ambulances) to selected, low-risk 9-1-1 calls. This tactic improves response intervals while reducing ambulance responses to these incidents.
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This article summarizes discussions held during a conference on outcomes research in emergency medical services for children. It provides detailed information on existing outcome measures for pediatric minor head injury. Benefits and/or limitations in their applicability for use in pediatric emergency medicine and pediatric minor head injury research are highlighted.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
The self-inflating bulb as an airway adjunct: is it reliable in children weighing less than 20 kilograms?
To confirm the ability of the self-inflating bulb to indicate endotracheal tube (ETT) position in children weighing less than 20 kilograms, and to determine whether the presence of air in the stomach affects the bulb's accuracy. ⋯ The self-inflating bulb is a reliable method of detecting endotracheal tube position in children weighing less than 20 kg, even with the use of uncuffed endotracheal tubes. Furthermore, the presence of air in the stomach, simulating field conditions, does not affect bulb effectiveness in detecting endotracheal tube position.
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Comparative Study
Comparison of perceived and actual times spent by residents performing ultrasound examinations on patients.
Emergency medicine (EM) ultrasonography (US) has become a part of residency education. More residents will be taking time during their shifts to perform bedside US examinations for educational purposes, thus further challenging time resources. ⋯ In this study, residents underestimated the amount of time spent performing an ultrasound examination. The small difference between the actual and perceived scan times was statistically significant; the clinical significance of this time difference is not known.