Articles: hospital-emergency-service.
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Emergency physicians (EP) are frequently interrupted to screen electrocardiograms (ECG) from Emergency Department (ED) patients undergoing triage. Our objective was to identify discrepancies between the computer ECG interpretation and the cardiologist ECG interpretation and if any patients with normal ECGs underwent emergent cardiac intervention. We hypothesized that computer-interpreted normal ECGs do not require immediate review by an EP. ⋯ Cardiologists frequently disagree with a computer-interpreted normal ECG. Patients with computer-interpreted normal ECGs, however, rarely had significant ischemic events. A rare number of patients will have important cardiac outcomes regardless of the computer-generated normal ECG interpretation. Immediate EP review of the ECG, however, would not have changed these patients' ED courses.
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EDs globally are under increasing pressure through rising demand. Frequent attenders are known to have complex health needs and use a disproportionate amount of resources. We hypothesised that heterogeneity of patients' reason for attendance would be associated with multimorbidity and increasing age, and predict future attendance. ⋯ Heterogeneity of presenting complaint can be quantified and analysed for ED use: it is increased where there is a history of mental disorder but not with age. This suggests it reflects more than the number of medical conditions.
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Eur. J. Intern. Med. · Jan 2022
Multicenter Study Observational StudySex differences in clinical presentation and risk stratification in the Emergency Department: An observational multicenter cohort study.
The aim of this study was to investigate whether sex differences exist in disease presentations, disease severity and (case-mix adjusted) outcomes in the Emergency Department (ED). ⋯ Although patient characteristics at ED presentation for both sexes are comparable, males are at higher unadjusted and adjusted risk for adverse outcomes. Males have higher risks in all triage categories and with almost all presenting complaints. Future studies should investigate reasons for higher risk in male ED patients.
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Pediatric emergency care · Jan 2022
Patient and Visit Characteristics of Pediatric Patients With High-frequency Low-acuity Emergency Department Visits.
Pediatric patients account for a disproportionate number of low-acuity emergency department (ED) visits. The aim of this study is to describe pediatric patient and visit characteristics for high-frequency users for low-acuity visits. ⋯ In our sample, most high-frequency low-acuity ED patients were infants, African American and have public insurance. Many are seen during clinic hours and are paneled at affiliated clinics. Among superusers, the majority of the visits did not require any testing, intervention, or treatment.
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There are limited data regarding the utility of troponin testing in patients presenting with non-cardiovascular (CV) symptoms as the primary manifestation. The study population comprised 2057 patients who presented to the emergency department (ED) of a US healthcare system with non-CV symptoms as the primary manifestation between January and September 2018. We compared the effect of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) (n = 901) after its introduction vs. 4th generation cTnT (n = 1156) on the following outcomes measures: ED length of stay (LOS), coronary tests/procedures (angiography or stress test), and long-term mortality. ⋯ Coronary tests/procedures were performed at a significantly higher rate in the hs-cTnT than cTnT following the introduction of the hs-cTnT test (28% vs. 22%, p < 0.001). Multivariate analysis showed that following the introduction of hs-cTnT testing, there was a significant 27% lower risk of long-term mortality from ED admission through follow-up (HR = 0.73, 95%CI 0.54-0.98; p = 0.035). In conclusion, we show that in patients presenting primarily with non-CV disorders, the implementation of the hs-cTnT was associated with a higher rate of diagnostic coronary procedures/interventions, possibly leading to improved long-term survival rates.