Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
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A shortcut review was carried out to establish whether intravenous lidocaine is effective in the management of renal colic. Two studies were directly relevant to the question. ⋯ The clinical bottom line is that intravenous lidocaine may be of some benefit in renal colic. However, there are other maybe more effective drugs available.
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To estimate the global and national burden of emergency conditions, and compare them to emergency care usage rates. ⋯ Despite higher burden of emergency conditions, emergency usage rates are substantially lower in LMICs, likely due to limited access to emergency care.
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The Pennine Acute Trust (PAT) Paediatric Observation Priority Score (PAT-POPS) is a specific emergency department (ED) physiological and observational aggregate scoring system, with scores of 0-18. A higher score indicates greater likelihood of admission. The Manchester Children's Early Warning System (ManChEWS) assesses six physiological observations to create a trigger score, classified as Green, Amber or Red. ⋯ PAT-POPS is a more accurate predictor of admission risk than ManChEWS. Replacing ManChEWS with PAT-POPS would appear to be clinically appropriate in a paediatric ED. This needs validation in a multicentre study.
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National data collection provides information on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) incidence, management and outcomes that may not be generalisable from smaller studies. This retrospective cohort study describes the first 2 years' results from the Irish National Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Register (OHCAR). ⋯ This study highlights the role of nationwide registries in quantifying, monitoring and benchmarking OHCA incidence and outcome, providing baseline data upon which service improvement effects can be measured.
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Observational Study
ED healthcare professionals and their notions of productivity.
The combination of constrained resources, patient complexity and rapidly increasing demand has meant that healthcare productivity constitutes a significant problem for emergency medicine. However, healthcare productivity remains a contentious issue, with some criticising the level of professional engagement. This paper will propose that productivity improvements in healthcare could occur (and be sustained) if professionals' perceptions and views of productivity were better understood. ⋯ By exploring how these HCPs experienced and made sense of productivity improvement and productive healthcare, the data reveals how HCPs may reconcile a culture of caring with one of efficiency. Understanding healthcare productivity from this perspective has potential implications for service improvement design and performance measurement.