Emergencias
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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 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 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 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.
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The return-visit rate has been suggested as a measure of emergency department quality of care. We aimed to identify the reasons for emergency revisits and the percentage of returns related to problems with quality of care in the previous visit. ⋯ Most emergency department revisits are related to the progression of the disease that led to the first visit. Only a small percentage can be linked to diagnostic or treatment errors in the previous visit.