BMC emergency medicine
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BMC emergency medicine · Feb 2016
Multicenter Study Observational StudyValidation of a novel prediction model for early mortality in adult trauma patients in three public university hospitals in urban India.
Trauma is one of the top threats to population health globally. Several prediction models have been developed to supplement clinical judgment in trauma care. Whereas most models have been developed in high-income countries the majority of trauma deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. Almost 20 % of all global trauma deaths occur in India alone. The aim of this study was to validate a basic clinical prediction model for use in urban Indian university hospitals, and to compare it with existing models for use in early trauma care. ⋯ A basic clinical prediction model with only two parameters may prove to be a feasible alternative to more complex models in contexts such as the Indian public university hospitals studied here. We present a colour-coded chart to further simplify the decision making in early trauma care.
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BMC emergency medicine · Feb 2016
Use of diagnosis codes for detection of clinically significant opioid poisoning in the emergency department: A retrospective analysis of a surveillance case definition.
Although fatal opioid poisonings tripled from 1999 to 2008, data describing nonfatal poisonings are rare. Public health authorities are in need of tools to track opioid poisonings in near real time. ⋯ This surveillance mechanism identifies many clinically significant opioid overdoses with a high positive predictive value. With further validation, it may help target control measures such as prescriber education and pharmacy monitoring.
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BMC emergency medicine · Feb 2016
Randomized Controlled TrialProtocol: simulation training to improve 9-1-1 dispatcher identification of cardiac arrest.
9-1-1 dispatchers are often the first contact for bystanders witnessing an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. In the time before Emergency Medical Services arrives, dispatcher identification of the need for, and provision of Telephone-CPR (T-CPR) can improve survival. Our study aims to evaluate the use of phone-based standardized patient simulation training to improve identification of the need for T-CPR and shorten time to start of T-CPR instructions. ⋯ The STAT-911 study will evaluate if over-the-phone simulation training with standardized patients can improve 9-1-1 dispatchers' ability identify the need for, and promptly begin T-CPR. Furthermore, it will advance knowledge on the effectiveness of simulation training for health services phone-operators interacting with clients, patients, or bystanders in diagnosis, triage, and treatment decisions.