Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Acad Emerg Med
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Spinal epidural abscess (SEA) is a rare, catastrophic condition for which diagnostic delays are common. Our national group develops evidence-based guidelines, known as clinical management tools (CMT), to reduce high-risk misdiagnoses. We study whether implementation of our back pain CMT improved SEA diagnostic timeliness and testing rates in the emergency department (ED). ⋯ Back pain CMT implementation was associated with an increased rate of recommended imaging and laboratory testing in back pain. There was no associated reduction in the proportion of SEA cases with a related prior visit or time to SEA diagnosis.