Articles: hospital-emergency-service.
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The perceived urgency of 2000 consecutive patients attending the Accident and Emergency Department of the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, was assessed using a Linear Analogue Scale. Each patient was assessed by the receptionist, the receiving nurse and the treating doctor. The distribution of urgency rating produced for this patient group was shown to be comparable for each status of assessor, and to correlate with other outcome criteria such as admission and referral rates. ⋯ However, the complexity of many of these scales, together with the difficulty in usage of so many different scales, begs a reappraisal of the overall triage of patients attending the emergency department. The aim of this study was to look at the perceived urgency distribution of patients presenting to the emergency department. We wished to compare the relative assessment of urgency by various levels of treating staff and to compare those assessments with the referral and outcome of these patients to provide the basis for the development of a comparative Triage Scale.
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This is a descriptive and evaluative report regarding a clinical pharmacy residency in-house on-call program that facilitates the provision of 24-hour clinical pharmacy consultative services within the emergency department. During the two-year evaluation period, clinical pharmacy residents completed 3.1 consultations per 14-hour call period. ⋯ These consultations were usually solicited by internal medicine physicians within the emergency department, involved patient-specific drug therapy recommendations, and required about 100 minutes (mean per consultation) of the clinical pharmacist's time. Thus, clinical pharmacy consultative services can be a useful addition to health care within the emergency department in teaching hospitals.
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The hand-held computer (HHC) allows computer technology to be brought inexpensively to the patient's bedside. In this paper we describe HHC applications software that interprets oxygenation, ventilation, and acid-base status--and also provides a differential diagnosis and makes suggestions for therapy. ⋯ Computerized arterial blood gas interpretation is especially helpful to students and others who infrequently interpret arterial blood gases. The software described here has been enthusiastically accepted by emergency department personnel in our institution.