The western journal of emergency medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Randomized Controlled Trial of Electronic Care Plan Alerts and Resource Utilization by High Frequency Emergency Department Users with Opioid Use Disorder.
There is a paucity of literature supporting the use of electronic alerts for patients with high frequency emergency department (ED) use. We sought to measure changes in opioid prescribing and administration practices, total charges and other resource utilization using electronic alerts to notify providers of an opioid-use care plan for high frequency ED patients. ⋯ Electronic care plans were associated with an incremental decrease in opioids (in morphine mg equivalents) prescribed to patients with opioid use disorder and high frequency ED use.
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Comparative Study
Point-of-Care Multi-Organ Ultrasound Improves Diagnostic Accuracy in Adults Presenting to the Emergency Department with Acute Dyspnea.
Determining the etiology of acute dyspnea in emregency department (ED) patients is often difficult. Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) holds promise for improving immediate diagnostic accuracy (after history and physical), thus improving use of focused therapies. We evaluate the impact of a three-part POCUS exam, or "triple scan" (TS) - composed of abbreviated echocardiography, lung ultrasound and inferior vena cava (IVC) collapsibility assessment - on the treating physician's immediate diagnostic impression. ⋯ In this small study, POCUS evaluation of the heart, lungs and IVC improved the treating physician's immediate overall diagnostic accuracy for ADHF, COPD/asthma and pneumonia and was particularly useful to immediately exclude ADHF as the cause of acute dyspnea.
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Most emergency physicians routinely obtain shoulder radiographs before and after shoulder dislocations. However, currently there is limited literature demonstrating how frequently new fractures are identified on post-reduction radiographs. The primary objective of this study was to determine the frequency of new, clinically significant fractures identified on post-reduction radiographs with a secondary outcome assessing total new fractures identified. ⋯ Post-reduction radiographs do not appear to identify any new, clinically significant fractures. Practitioners should re-consider the use of routine post-reduction radiographs in the ED setting for shoulder dislocations.
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There is a paucity of data studying patients and complaints presenting to emergency departments (EDs) in low- and middle-income countries. The town of Pedro Vicente Maldonado (PVM) is located in the northwestern highlands of Ecuador. Hospital PVM (HPVM) is a rural teaching hospital providing family medicine residency training. These physicians provide around-the-clock acute medical care in HPVM's ED. This study provides a first look at a functioning ED in rural Latin America by reviewing one year of ED visits to HPVM. ⋯ Analysis of patients presenting to a rural ED in Ecuador contributes to the global study of acute care in the developing world and also provides a self-analysis identifying disease patterns of the area, training topics for residents, areas for introducing protocols, and information to help planning for rural EDs in low- and middle-income countries.
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This retrospective cohort study provides a descriptive analysis of a population that frequently uses an urban emergency medical service (EMS) and identifies factors that contribute to use among all frequent users. For purposes of this study we divided frequent users into the following groups: low- frequent users (4 EMS transports in 2012), medium-frequent users (5 to 6 EMS transports in 2012), high-frequent users (7 to 10 EMS transports in 2012) and super-frequent users (11 or more EMS transports in 2012). Overall, we identified 539 individuals as frequent users. ⋯ This could potentially be avoided with better care management. In addition, this study adds to the current literature that illustrates a strong correlation between substance abuse/misuse and high/super-frequent EMS use. For the subgroup analysis among individuals 65 years of age and older, we did not find any of the independent variables included in our model to be statistically significant with frequent EMS use.