BMC emergency medicine
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BMC emergency medicine · Jun 2017
Assessment of client satisfaction on emergency department services in Hawassa University Referral Hospital, Hawassa, Southern Ethiopia.
Satisfaction refers to a state of pleasure or contentment with an action, event or service, especially one that was previously desired. Regarding to client, satisfaction is the level of happiness that clients experience having used a service. It therefore reflects the gap between the expected service and the experience of the service, from the client's point of view. Information was unavailable regarding the level of satisfaction of patients towards emergency health care servicesat Hawassa University Referral Hospital thatserve a huge catchment area; and this study addressed this gap. ⋯ This study showed low level of patient satisfaction in pharmacy services specifically due to unavailability of drugs due to lack of sustained supply of drugs.
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BMC emergency medicine · Jun 2017
Reasons for encounter by different levels of urgency in out-of-hours emergency primary health care in Norway: a cross sectional study.
Frequencies of reasons for encounter (RFEs) in emergency primary care out-of-hours (OOH) services are relevant for planning of capacities as well as to target the training of staff at casualty clinics. We aimed to present frequencies of RFEs in the different organ systems, and to identify the most frequent RFEs at different urgency levels. ⋯ This study identifies important differences in RFEs between urgency levels in the Norwegian OOH services. The findings provide new insight into the function of the primary health care emergency services in the Norwegian health care system, and should have implications for staffing, training and equipment in the OOH services.
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BMC emergency medicine · May 2017
Emergency department use and barriers to wellness: a survey of emergency department frequent users.
There is no common understanding of how needs of emergency department (ED) frequent users differ from other patients. This study sought to examine how to best serve this population. Examinations of why ED frequent users present to the ED, what barriers to care exist, and what service offerings may help these patients achieve an optimal level of health were conducted. ⋯ This study characterized ED frequent users and identified several opportunities to better serve this population. By understanding barriers to care from the patient perspective, health systems can potentially address unmet needs that prevent wellness in this population.
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BMC emergency medicine · May 2017
Developing quality indicators for the care of patients with musculoskeletal injuries in the Emergency Department: study protocol.
Musculoskeletal injuries are a common presentation to the Emergency Department (ED). The quality of care provided is important to the patients, clinicians, organisations and purchasers of care. In the context of the increasing burden of musculoskeletal disease, quality of care needs to occur despite financial impacts, variations in care, and pressure to reach time-based performance measures. This study aims to develop a suite of evidence-based quality indicators (QI) which will provide a measure of the quality of care for patients with musculoskeletal injuries in the ED. ⋯ The assessment of performance against QIs provides a quantitative measure for the quality of care provided to patients, to identify and target quality improvement activities. The QIs developed through this study will be evidence-based and balanced across the areas of structures, processes and outcomes. The rigorous methodology used to develop and test the QIs will result in QIs that are meaningful, valid, feasible to collect and efficiently measurable, amenable to improvement, and selected by experts in the emergency medicine field. The final QI suite will have applications across EDs that affords comparison, benchmarking and optimisation of emergency care for patients.
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BMC emergency medicine · Mar 2017
Prevalence and predictors of intra-abdominal hypertension and compartment syndrome in surgical patients in critical care units at Kenyatta National Hospital.
Intra-abdominal hypertension (IAH) affects almost every organ sytem.If it is not detected early and corrected, mortality would be high. The prevalence of IAH and abdominal compartment syndrome (ACS) at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) critical care units is not known. The aim of this sudy was to determine the prevalence and factors associated with development of IAH/ACS among critically ill surgical patients. ⋯ The prevalence of intraabdominal hypertension and abdominal compartment syndrome at KNH is high. Clinical parameters pertaining to fluids administration and ventilator mode are siginificant determinants.