Articles: emergency-department.
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Carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning is an important reason for emergency department (ED) visits during winter months, but because there are no specific symptoms it can be difficult to diagnose. We aimed to determine the frequency of CO poisoning in patients presenting to the ED with headaches during winter months and evaluate the ability of non-invasive carboxyhaemoglobin measurement (SpCO) to screen for CO poisoning in these patients. ⋯ CO poisoning should be kept in mind in patients presenting to the ED with a headache. SpCO is an effective screening tool to detect CO poisoning in these patients.
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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.
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Emergency department (ED) visits have continued to rise, and frequent ED users account for up to 8% of all ED visits. Reducing visits by frequent ED users may be one way to help reduce health care costs. We hypothesize that frequent users have unique ED utilization patterns resulting in differences in health care charges. ⋯ Frequent users have unique medical and social characteristics; however, disposition and visit charges did not differ from nonfrequent users.
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Pediatric emergency care · Oct 2014
Comparative StudyChanges in practice patterns with the opening of a dedicated pediatric emergency department.
Dedicated pediatric emergency departments (ED) staffed by pediatric emergency medicine physicians are becoming more common. We compared processes of care and outcomes before and after opening a dedicated pediatric ED. ⋯ Opening of a pediatric ED with pediatric emergency physicians was associated with decreases in ED LOS, rates of LWBS, general radiographic, and computed tomography imaging as well as laboratory testing, and increases in patient satisfaction scores. The clinical significance of these changes is unclear.
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Pediatric emergency care · Oct 2014
Prevalence of serious bacterial infections in return visits to the emergency department among infants aged 90 days or younger.
The main objective of this study was to describe the epidemiology of return visits (RVs) in well-appearing infants to an urban emergency department (ED) who were evaluated for serious bacterial infection (SBI) at their index ED visit. ⋯ Infants aged 90 days or younger who are evaluated for SBI have high RV rates. A substantial number of RVs are due to contaminated blood cultures. Future studies should be conducted to identify predictors for false-positive blood cultures.