Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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The objective was to examine the relationship between laboratory testing (including test volume and turnaround time [TAT]) and emergency department (ED) length of stay (LOS), using linked patient-level data from four hospitals across 4 years. ⋯ Laboratory testing has a direct effect on patients' LOS in ED. Laboratory TAT, number of testing episodes, and test volume influence ED LOS. Targeted increases of ED resources and staffing after-hours may also contribute to reductions in ED LOS.
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Acute stroke is a leading cause of brain injury and death and requires rapid and accurate diagnosis. Noncontrast head computed tomography (CT) is the first line for diagnosis in the emergency department (ED). Complicating rapid triage are presenting conditions that clinically mimic stroke. There is an extensive literature reporting clinical utility of brain electrical activity in early diagnosis and management of acute stroke. However, existing technologies do not lend themselves to easily acquired rapid evaluation. This investigation used an independently derived classifier algorithm for the identification of traumatic structural brain injury based on brain electrical activity recorded from a reduced frontal montage to explore the potential clinical utility of such an approach in acute stroke assessment. ⋯ Despite a small population and the use of a classifier without the benefit of training on a stroke population, these data suggest that a rapidly acquired, easy-to-use system to assess brain electrical activity at the time of evaluation of acute stroke could be a valuable adjunct to current clinical practice.