Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
-
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
A randomized clinical trial to assess the impact on an emergency response system on anxiety and health care use among older emergency patients after a fall.
Personal emergency response systems (PERSs) are reported to reduce anxiety and health care use and may assist in planning the disposition of older patients discharged from the emergency department (ED) to home. This study measured the impact of a PERS on anxiety, fear of falling, and subsequent health care use among older ED patients. ⋯ In contrast to previous studies, there was no evidence that a PERS reduced anxiety, fear of falling, or return to the ED among older persons discharged from the ED.
-
Revised Pediatric Emergency Assessment Tool (RePEAT): a severity index for pediatric emergency care.
To develop and validate a multivariable model, using information available at the time of patient triage, to predict the level of care provided to pediatric emergency patients for use as a severity of illness measure. ⋯ The RePEAT score accurately predicts level of care provided for pediatric emergency patients and may provide a useful means of risk adjustment when benchmarking outcomes
-
Boarding admitted patients in emergency department (ED) treatment beds has been recognized as a major cause of ED crowding and ambulance diversions. When process delays impede the transfer of admitted patients from the ED to inpatient units, the department's capacity to accept new arrivals and to generate revenue from additional patient services is restricted. The objective of this study was to determine the amount of functional ED treatment capacity that was used to board inpatients during 12 months of operations at a community hospital and to estimate the value of that lost treatment capacity. ⋯ Significantly higher operational revenues could be generated by reducing output delays that restrict optimal utilization of existing ED treatment capacity.