Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Comment
Hot off the Press: SGEM #226. I Want a New Drug-One That Doesn't Cause an Adverse Drug Event.
Adverse drug events (ADEs) are a significant cause of emergency department (ED) visits in North America and are frequently misdiagnosed. Despite evidence supporting improved health care outcomes for ED patients who have a pharmacist-led medication review, EDs do not have sufficient clinical pharmacists to perform medication reviews on all patients. The study reviewed in this article aimed to validate clinical decision rules for use by clinical pharmacists and physicians to prioritize ED patients with ADEs.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Randomized Clinical Trial of Intravenous Acetaminophen as an Analgesic Adjunct for Older Adults With Acute Severe Pain.
Older adults are at risk for undertreatment of pain. We examined intravenous (IV) acetaminophen as an analgesic adjunct to IV opioids in the care of older emergency department (ED) patients with acute severe pain. ⋯ In this randomized clinical trial, the addition of IV acetaminophen to IV hydromorphone as an adjunctive analgesic for acute, severe, pain in older adults provided neither clinically nor statistically superior pain relief when compared to hydromorphone alone within the first hour of treatment.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Randomized Clinical Trial Comparing Procedural Amnesia and Respiratory Depression Between Moderate and Deep Sedation With Propofol in the Emergency Department.
The objective was to determine if there is a difference in procedural amnesia and adverse respiratory events (AREs) between the target sedation levels of moderate (MS) and deep (DS) procedural sedation. ⋯ Targeting MS or DS did not reliably result in the intended sedation level. Targeting MS, however, resulted in a lower rate of total AREs and fewer patients had multiple AREs with no difference in procedural recall. As seen in previous reports, patients who achieved MS had less AREs than those who achieved DS. Our study suggests that a target of MS provides adequate amnesia with less need for supportive airway interventions than a target level of DS, despite the fact that it often does not result in intended sedation level.