Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Anxiety and depression rates among emergency department (ED) patients are substantially higher than those in the general population. Additionally, those with mental health issues often have difficulty accessing care. Unfortunately, issues of anxiety and depression are frequently not addressed in the ED due to competing care priorities. This may lead to increased burden and overcrowding in EDs. ⋯ Patients identified with internalizing mental health concerns utilize the ED at elevated rates while also reporting the greatest difficulties accessing care. These findings highlight the need for ED interventions aimed at identifying patient mental health concerns, as well as perceived barriers to care, to design interventions to effectively improve continuity of care.
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Observational Study
Current Status of Gender and Racial/ Ethnic Disparities Among Academic Emergency Medicine Physicians.
A 2010 survey identified disparities in salaries by gender and underrepresented minorities (URM). With an increase in the emergency medicine (EM) workforce since, we aimed to 1) describe the current status of academic EM workforce by gender, race, and rank and 2) evaluate if disparities still exist in salary or rank by gender. ⋯ In 2015, disparities in salary and rank persist among full-time U.S. academic EM faculty. There were gender and URM disparities in rank and leadership positions. Women earned less than men regardless of rank, clinical hours, or training. Future efforts should focus on evaluating salary data by race and developing systemwide practices to eliminate disparities.
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Critical care is an expensive and limited resource, and short-stay critical care admissions may be treated in alternate, less costly settings. This study objective was to determine the proportion of critical care admissions with a short critical care length of stay (LOS) and identify the clinical characteristics and diagnoses associated with high and low rates of short-stay critical care admissions. ⋯ Over one-third of critical care admissions were short stay. Alternate strategies to manage these patients, including ED-based critical care units or other venues of inpatient care, may be more cost-efficient for selected patients.