Can J Emerg Med
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Emergency department (ED) access block, the inability to provide timely care for high acuity patients, is the leading safety concern in First World EDs. The main cause of ED access block is hospital access block with prolonged boarding of inpatients in emergency stretchers. Cumulative emergency access gap, the product of the number of arriving high acuity patients and their average delay to reach a care space, is a novel access measure that provides a facility-level estimate of total emergency care delays. Many health leaders believe these delays are too large to be solved without substantial increases in hospital capacity. Our objective was to quantify cumulative emergency access blocks (the problem) as a fraction of inpatient capacity (the potential solution) at a large sample of Canadian hospitals. ⋯ ED access gaps are large and jeopardize care for high acuity patients, but they are small relative to hospital operating capacity. If access block were viewed as a "whole hospital" problem, capacity or efficiency improvements in the range of 1% to 3% could profoundly mitigate emergency care delays.
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Multicenter Study
The Quebec emergency department guide: A cross-sectional study to evaluate its use, perceived usefulness, and implementation in rural emergency departments.
The Quebec Emergency Department Management Guide (QEDMG) is a unique document with 78 recommendations designed to improve the organization of emergency departments (EDs) in the province of Quebec. However, no study has examined how this guide is perceived or used by rural health care management. ⋯ Although the QEDMG is considered a useful guide for rural EDs, it is not optimally known or used in rural EDs, especially by physician management. Stakeholders should consider these findings before implementing the revised versions of the QEDMG.
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Multicenter Study
Evaluating mental health service use during and after emergency department visits in a multisite cohort of Canadian children and youth.
The goal of this study was to examine the mental health needs of children and youth who present to the emergency department (ED) for mental health care and to describe the type of, and satisfaction with, follow-up mental health services accessed. ⋯ Children and youth and their families presenting to the ED with mental health needs had substantial clinical morbidity, were connected with services, were satisfied with their ED visit, and accessed follow-up care within 1-month with some variability.
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Multicenter Study Observational Study
Sex-specific, high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T cut-off concentrations for ruling out acute myocardial infarction with a single measurement.
Sex-specific diagnostic cut-offs may improve the test characteristics of high-sensitivity troponin assays for the diagnosis of myocardial infarction (MI). The objective of this study was to quantify test characteristics of sex-specific cut-offs of a single, high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) assay for 7-day MI in patients with chest pain. ⋯ Sex-specific hs-cTnT cut-offs for ruling out MI at ED arrival may improve classification performance, enabling more patients to be safely ruled out at ED arrival. However, differences between sex-specific and universal cut-off concentrations are within the variation of the assay, limiting the clinical utility of this approach. These findings should be confirmed in other data sets.
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Multicenter Study
Equality of care between First Nations and non-First Nations patients in Saskatoon emergency departments.
Studies show that First Nations patients have worse health outcomes than non-First Nations patients, raising concerns that treatment within the healthcare system, including emergency care, is inequitable. ⋯ In this study, First Nations patients presenting with abdominal pain did not receive delayed care. There were no detectable differences in the time-related care parameters/variables that were provided relative to non-First Nations patients. Meaningful and important qualitative factors need to be examined in the future.