Emergencias
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To assess the efficacy of the Boussignac continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) device for treating patients with acute respiratory failure transported by an emergency medical service. ⋯ Most patients tolerated treatment with the Boussignac CPAP device and improved clinically. Few required intubation and mortality was very low.
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To analyze the impact of quality-indicator-based measures for improving quality of care for acute poisoning in pediatric emergency departments. ⋯ The corrective measures led to improvements in some quality indicators. There is still room for improvement in these emergency departamens' care of pediatric poisoning.
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To determine the validity of 2 triage systems: the 3M Triage Assistance System (3M-TAS) and the combined Spanish Triage System and Andorran Triage Model (SET-MAT) for predicting hospitalization and use of emergency resources; and to estimate the level of agreement between them. ⋯ Agreement between the 3M-TAS and SET-MAT triage systems was poor, although they predicted similar use of resources in the ED. The 3M-TAS was better able to predict hospital admission than the SET-MAT.
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To determine the probability of finding significant coronary lesions, the time to diagnosis, and the safety of a new diagnostic approach based on high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hsTnT) testing followed by coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) in patients with chest pain of possible coronary origin. The method was compared with our hospital emergency department's standard practice. ⋯ The new strategy could accelerate diagnosis and increase the probability of finding significant coronary lesions, but we found no significant differences in adverse events in the 3 months following diagnosis. These findings should be confirmed in studies with larger numbers of patients.
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To describe the characteristics of frequent users of hospital emergency departments and analyze whether characteristics varied in relation to how revisits were distributed over the course of the year studied. ⋯ Our study shows that the frequent user has specific characteristics and loyally comes to the same emergency department over the course of a year. Patients whose revisits are dispersed over a longer period have more complex problems and use more resources during their initial visit.