Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
-
In 1998 'Dubdoc', Ireland's first out-of-hours general practice emergency service, opened in an outpatient suite in St James's Hospital with a separate entrance 300 m from the emergency department (ED). Dubdoc was established with the aim of providing an easy access out-of-hours service for ambulatory patients of those doctors supplying the service. ⋯ Although the presence of the 'Dubdoc' service has resulted in a decrease in ED attendances for triage categories 4 and 5, this is a minor proportion of the overall decrease in attendances in this group of patients.
-
Experience with a novel method of notifying investigators about research subjects in a university-based emergency department (ED) is reported. ⋯ Automated paging using the electronic medical record has the potential to improve enrolment in clinical research studies by improving the speed and sensitivity of identifying eligible subjects.