Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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To characterize the types and external causes of pediatric injury-related visits (IRVs) to emergency departments (EDs), in particular, sports-related injuries. To compare the characteristics of children with IRVs with those with non-IRVs, specifically, differences in IRV rates by race and ethnicity and by health insurance. ⋯ Sports and recreation are the leading external causes of pediatric IRVs to EDs in the United States. There are different patterns of IRVs according to gender, age, race, ethnicity, and insurance. Identification of specific patterns of injury is necessary for the design of effective prevention strategies.
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Practice Guideline Guideline
The Society for Academic Emergency Medicine position on informed consent for emergency medicine research.
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The Society for Academic Emergency Medicine believes that protection of human subjects is vital in emergency medicine research and that, whenever feasible, informed consent is at the heart of that protection. At the same time, the emergency setting presents unique barriers to informed consent both because of the time frame in which the research is performed and because patients in the emergency department are a vulnerable population. This report reviews the concept of informed consent, empirical data on patients' cognitive abilities during an emergency, the federal rules allowing exemption from consent under certain circumstances, issues surrounding consent forms, and the new Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act regulations as they relate to research. ⋯ Sometimes resuscitation and other emergency medicine research must be conducted without the ability to obtain consent. In these cases, special protections of subjects under the exception from consent guidelines must be followed. Protection of research subjects is the responsibility of every researcher in emergency medicine.
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To examine the Rapid Emergency Medicine Score (REMS) as a predictor of long-term (4.7 years) mortality in the nonsurgical emergency department (ED). ⋯ REMS was a powerful predictor of long-term mortality in patients attending the ED for a wide range of common nonsurgical disorders.
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To examine how emergency department (ED) overcrowding has been defined in the medical literature. ⋯ Although ED overcrowding has been a topic of frequent investigation, current definitions of the problem are often implicit or focus on factors outside of the ED itself. A more consistent approach to defining ED overcrowding would help to clarify the distinctions between causes, characteristics, and outcomes of overcrowding.