Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
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The Greater Sydney Area Helicopter Emergency Medical Service provides physicians for undertaking prehospital and inter-hospital critical care. We quantified the obstetric caseload of our service with respect to primary diagnosis and interventions in order to provide targeted physician training. ⋯ A half of all peri-partum patients in our critical care transport service are retrieved for non-obstetric diagnoses. Obstetric interventions by retrieval physicians are rare, but resuscitative hysterotomy may be required. Most interventions are general critical care procedures. Exhaustive training in obstetric emergencies may not reflect the learning needs of retrieval physicians in services such as ours. Educational resources should prioritise general critical care of the pregnant woman rather than specific obstetric procedures. We have used these findings to construct a targeted obstetric module as part of our retrieval physician training programme.
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Observational Study
Parental anxiety and affecting factors in acute paediatric blunt head injury.
This study is designed to investigate the factors affecting parental anxiety regarding their children with head injury in the emergency department (ED). ⋯ Radiological investigations had no significant impact on the decrease in anxiety and persuasion scores of the parents by themselves, while neurosurgical consultation had significant impact on them. Emergency physicians should tailor their strategy to institute effective communication with the parents of children to cut down unnecessary investigations in PBHI.
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This study compared patient experiences of care provided by emergency care practitioners (ECPs) and usual providers in different emergency and urgent care settings. ⋯ Users of ECP services were more likely to be highly satisfied with overall care than usual provider patients in the study settings.
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Adolescence is a time of increasing health and peak fitness, as well as increasing health risks. In the UK, primary care is free at the point of access, yet, adolescents aged 10-19 years are the lowest users of primary care services, and disproportionately high users of emergency services. The effect of new general practitioner (GP)-led urgent care centres in meeting the needs of adolescents are unknown. ⋯ Adolescents aged 15-19 years are more likely to attend urgent care centres than general practice. The majority attended for conditions commonly seen in primary care including musculoskeletal conditions and injuries, and respiratory tract infections. Primary care services may need to be more responsive to needs of the older adolescent age, if their use of urgent care centres is to be reduced.
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Observational Study
Cross-sectional study of the characteristics, healthcare usage, morbidity and mortality of injecting drug users attending an inner city emergency department.
The affliction of injecting drug use (IDU) has resulted in the emergence of a subgroup of people with a unique set of medical issues. We aimed to describe the emergency department (ED) presentations of IDUs. ⋯ Our study characterises the emergency presentations of active IDUs. We describe considerable acute and chronic medical consequences and high healthcare utilisation associated with IDU. This study is of particular relevance to any institution that provides acute medical care to this group of patients.