Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
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Since the end of World War II, there has been an emergence of explosives used amongst civilian populations resulting in mass-casualty incidents. The development of pre-hospital medical systems, worldwide, has resulted in an increased response at these incidents. However, information about the pre-hospital medical response is sparse and not collated. This review aimed to collect and appraise the literature on the pre-hospital management of mass-casualty bombing incidents. The primary objective was to identify and discuss the common themes highlighted as problems in the pre-hospital medical response. The secondary objectives reviewed the injury patterns in victims and psychological impacts on pre-hospital responders. ⋯ Functioning and reliable communication, alongside regular training exercises with other emergency services, is important in the pre-hospital response. This is aided through accurate triage, in a safe area, to ensure even casualty distribution. A visible and established command and control enables scenes to be led effectively. Access to suitable and adequate supplies of equipment fosters improvement in patient outcomes. Awareness of secondary devices, as well as chemical, radiological and nuclear exposure, is vital in ensuring responder safety. A variety of injury patterns was found. Finally, psychological complications and support systems amongst pre-hospital responders varied.
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PATCH is a pilot acute community children's nurse led service delivering assessment and treatment for children at home who are moderately unwell and might otherwise be admitted to hospital or attend Paediatric Emergency Department (PED). Children are referred by PED or GP and followed up via telephone support and home visits depending on clinical need for duration of acute illness. ⋯ Activity - Appendix 1Phase 1 - Concentrated on respiratory conditions from PED.Total 188 referrals in first 7 months. Bronchiolitis 45%; viral wheeze 37.5%; asthma 7%; lower respiratory tract infections 5.4%.emermed;34/12/A895-b/F2F2F2Figure 250% of patients received home visits and telephone consultations; 50% only telephone support.Successes: Cost effective - Appendix 273 acute admissions avoided, costing c£400 per/night97 PED re-attendances prevented at £117 per attendance.Projected cost avoidance within acute care provider £3 27 640 pa.Estimated cost of service £2 84 000 pa.Positive feedback and reported health seeking behaviour change - Appendix 3 CHALLENGES: Information governance, cross organisational working, complex commissioning arrangements.emermed;34/12/A895-b/F3F3F3Figure 3 DISCUSSION: Within first 7 months PATCH has had a significant impact on avoiding admissions and re-attendances, thus improving flow and performance in PED. The projected financial impact is that it is cost effective.We are using this data to pursue a business case internally and with local CCGs. We are optimistic of succeeding and using phase 2 to build on partnerships garnered across the whole system to expand PATCH's impact further by reducing PED attendances and continuing to improve our local urgent care pathway for children.
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Improving survival after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is a priority for modern emergency medical services (EMS) and prehospital research. Advanced life support (ALS) is now the standard of care in most EMS. In some EMS, prehospital critical care providers are also dispatched to attend OHCA. This systematic review presents the evidence for prehospital critical care for OHCA, when compared to standard ALS care. ⋯ The review identified six full text publications that matched the inclusion criteria, all of which are observational studies. Three studies showed no benefit from prehospital critical care but were under-powered with sample sizes of 1028-1851. The other three publications showed benefit from prehospital critical care delivered by physicians. However, an imbalance of prognostic factors and hospital treatment in these studies systematically favoured the prehospital critical care group.emermed;34/12/A883-a/T1F1T1Table 1 CONCLUSION: Current evidence to support prehospital critical care for OHCA is limited by the logistic difficulties of undertaking high quality research in this area. Further research needs an appropriate sample size with adjustments for confounding factors in observational research design.
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The quality of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) has been shown to affect the survival of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest cases (OHCA). There are various individual factors that can affect the quality of chest compression. We aimed to determine if age, gender and physical attributes (height, weight and BMI) affected the quality of chest compressions administered by laypersons during training. ⋯ Overall, at least 1 parameter of chest compression quality decreased with age, and was better in males than females. A possible application of these results is to have differences in training methods for different ages and sexes, targeting parameters that they are weaker at.
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The most common route to a hospital bed in an emergency is via an Emergency Department (ED). Many recent initiatives and interventions have the objective of reducing the number of unnecessary emergency admissions. We aimed to assess whether ED admission thresholds had changed over time taking account of the casemix of patients arriving at ED. ⋯ The casemix-adjusted odds of admission via ED to NHS hospitals in England have decreased since April 2010. EDs are admitting a similar proportion of patients to hospital despite increases in the complexity and acuity of presenting patients. Without these threshold changes, the number of emergency admissions would have been 11.9% higher than was the case in year 5.