Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Elder patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) are less likely to receive cardiac catheterization. The reasons for this are unclear. ⋯ Elder patients with ACS residing in extended care facilities or who are DNR-DNI are less likely to receive cardiac catheterization. Future studies concerning the quality of ACS care for elders should take these variables into account.
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Conducted electrical weapons (CEWs) are used by law enforcement to subdue combative subjects. Occasionally, subjects will die after a CEW has been used on them. It is theorized that CEWs may contribute to these deaths by impairing respiration. ⋯ Prolonged CEW application did not impair respiratory parameters in this population of volunteers. Further study is recommended to validate these findings in other populations.
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Emergency physicians routinely treat victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) and patients with mental health symptoms, although these issues may be missed without routine screening. In addition, research has demonstrated a strong association between IPV victimization and mental health symptoms. ⋯ The brief mental health screen provides a tool that could be used in an emergency department setting and predicted those IPV victims with moderate to severe mental health symptoms. Using this tool can assist emergency physicians in recognizing at-risk patients and referring these IPV victims to mental health services.
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To quantify the impact of input and output factors on emergency department (ED) process outcomes while controlling for patient-level variables. ⋯ Achieving significant improvement in ED throughput is unlikely without determining the most important factors on process outcomes and taking measures to address variations in ED input and bottlenecks in the ED output stream.
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The utility of chest radiographs (CXRs) for detecting occult pneumonia (OP) among pediatric patients without lower respiratory tract signs has been previously studied, but no predictors other than white blood cell count (WBC) and height of fever have been investigated. ⋯ Occult pneumonia was found in 5.3% of patients with fever and no lower respiratory tract findings, tachypnea, or respiratory distress. There is limited utility in obtaining a CXR in febrile children without cough. The likelihood of pneumonia increased with longer duration of cough or fever or in the presence of leukocytosis.