Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Patients presenting in cardiac arrest frequently have poor outcomes despite heroic resuscitative measures in the field. Many emergency medical systems have protocols in place to stop resuscitative measures in the field; however, further predictors need to be developed for cardiac arrest patients brought to the emergency department (ED). ⋯ Patients presenting with cardiac standstill on bedside echocardiogram do not survive to leave the ED regardless of their electrical rhythms. This finding was uniform regardless of downtime. Although larger studies are needed, this may be an additional marker for cessation of resuscitative efforts.
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To determine whether there are patterns in the incidence of emergency department (ED) visits for congestive heart failure (CHF) by month of the year, day of the week, or hour of the day. ⋯ These data revealed a higher incidence of ED visits for CHF in the winter months, on Mondays, and during the hours of 8 AM to 3 PM. In comparison with previous studies, these data revealed a similar pattern by month of the year and a different pattern by hour of the day.
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To measure the ability of cardiac sonography and capnography to predict survival of cardiac arrest patients in the emergency department (ED). ⋯ Both the sonographic detection of cardiac activity and ETCO(2) levels higher than 16 torr were significantly associated with survival from ED resuscitation; however, logistic regression analysis demonstrated that prediction of survival using capnography was not enhanced by the addition of cardiac sonography.