Articles: emergency-department.
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Emergency departments (EDs) are increasingly overcrowded by walk-in patients. However, little is known about health-economic consequences resulting from long waiting times and inefficient use of specialised resources. We have evaluated a quality improvement project of a Swiss urban hospital: In 2009, a triage system and a hospital-associated primary care unit with General Practitioners (H-GP-unit) were implemented beside the conventional hospital ED. This resulted in improved medical service provision with reduced process times and more efficient diagnostic testing. We now report on health-economic effects. ⋯ From the health-economic point of view, our new service model shows 'dominance' over the old model: While quality of service provision improved (reduced waiting times; more efficient resource use in the H-GP-unit), treatment costs sustainably decreased against the secular trend of increase.
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To describe a tertiary care pediatric emergency department (PED) experience with bougienage for esophageal coins. ⋯ Esophageal bougienage is safe and highly effective. It is also more time and cost efficient than other treatment options.
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Pediatric emergency care · Oct 2014
Observational StudyFrequent pediatric emergency department use in infancy and early childhood.
To define the threshold and population factors associated with pediatric emergency department (PED) use above the norm during the first 36 months of life. ⋯ The threshold for frequent PED use was more than 5 visits per patient within the first 36 months of life. Further study is needed to better define this population and develop targeted interventions to ensure care provision occurs in the ideal setting.
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Observational Study
Pharmacist addition to the post-ED visit review of discharge antimicrobial regimens.
Our objective was to evaluate whether pharmacist addition to the postvisit review of discharged adult emergency department (ED) visits' prescriptions/cultures would reduce the prevalence of revised antimicrobial regimen inappropriateness. ⋯ In this single-center study, pharmacist addition to the postvisit review of discharged adult ED patients' prescriptions/cultures reduced the prevalence of revised antimicrobial regimen inappropriateness.
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Disruptive technologies are revolutionising continuing professional development in emergency medicine and critical care (EMCC). Data on EMCC blogs and podcasts were gathered prospectively from 2002 through November 2013. During this time there was a rapid expansion of EMCC websites, from two blogs and one podcast in 2002 to 141 blogs and 42 podcasts in 2013. This paper illustrates the explosive growth of EMCC websites and provides a foundation that will anchor future research in this burgeoning field.