Articles: emergency-department.
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A pilot study assessing the potential utility of cerebral oximetry (local cerebral oxygen saturation [rcSO2]) in children presenting to the emergency department (ED) with altered mental status (AMS) and no history of trauma. ⋯ This study demonstrated that cerebral oximetry can noninvasively detect altered cerebral physiology among a selected patient population. The difference between the left and right rcSO2 readings most reliably identified those subjects with altered cerebral physiology. In the future, rcSO2 monitoring has the potential to be used as a screening tool to identify, localize, and characterize intracranial injuries among children with AMS without a history of trauma.
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Although several studies have demonstrated that wait time is a key factor that drives high leave-without-being-seen (LWBS) rates, limited data on ideal wait times and impact on LWBS rates exist. ⋯ Achieving target LWBS rates requires analysis to understand the abandonment behavior and redesigning operations to achieve the target wait times.
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To determine if an initial (before treatment) prehospital end-tidal carbon dioxide (EtCO2) measurement in adult, non-chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthmatic patients predicts patient outcomes. ⋯ Extreme (both low and high) prehospital initial EtCO2 measurements may be associated with markers of poor patient outcomes. Future work will prospectively determine whether the addition of this information improves early recognition of severe asthma episodes beyond clinical assessment.
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To investigate the effect of medical student involvement on the quality of actual cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). ⋯ Student-involved resuscitation teams were able to perform good CPR, with higher compression rates and fewer interruptions. However, the supervision from medical staff is still needed to ensure appropriate chest compression and ventilation rate in student-involved actual CPR in the emergency department.
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Ann Phys Rehabil Med · Apr 2014
Patient transfer from a rehabilitation hospital to an emergency department : a retrospective study of an American trauma center.
To analyze medical indications and conditions for patients transferred from a rehabilitation hospital to an emergency department (ED). Are there differences in terms of which patients go to the ED during their stay and which do not? Specifically, what type of patient is most likely to be transferred? ⋯ The patients transferred from a rehabilitation hospital had complex, intense medical (and often psychological) issues. These patients' medical needs required a high level of resources in the ED. They frequently left the hospital in sub-optimal conditions, making it likely that they would return to the hospital via the ED prior to completing their treatment within the rehabilitation hospital.