Articles: emergency-medicine.
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There currently exists no standard productivity measure for emergency physicians. The objectives of this scoping review were to synthesize the literature to identify components of definitions and measurements of emergency physician productivity and to evaluate factors associated with productivity. ⋯ Emergency physician productivity is heterogeneously defined, but includes common elements such as patient volume, complexity, and processing time. Commonly reported productivity metrics include patients per hour and relative value units that incorporate patient volume and complexity, respectively. The findings of this scoping review can guide ED physicians and administrators to measure the impact of QI initiatives, promote efficient patient care, and optimize physician staffing.
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Use of acute care telemedicine is growing, but data on quality, utilization, and cost are limited. We evaluated a Veterans Affairs (VA) tele-emergency care (tele-EC) pilot aimed at reducing reliance on out-of-network (OON) emergency department (ED) care, a growing portion of VA spending. With this service, an emergency physician virtually evaluated selected Veterans calling a nurse triage line. ⋯ Among Veterans initially advised to seek care within 24 h, use of tele-EC compared to standard phone triage led to decreased ED visits, hospitalizations, and OON spending within 7 days.
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To determine what if any differences in presentation exist between men and women who present with acute intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) to the emergency department (ED). ⋯ Women have higher ICH scores than men at initial ED presentation for intracerebral hemorrhage. A higher ICH score is significantly associated with the worse outcomes of death and/or hospice.
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This study aimed to determine the diagnostic performance and utility of chest radiography in relation to chest computed tomography (CT) in nontraumatic respiratory emergency patients. ⋯ The consistency between the chest XR and CT was more likely in patients aged <40 years and for PA and moderate-to-high quality chest XR views, as compared to older patients and AP and poor-quality views, respectively. We suggest that an upright position PA chest X-ray with high imaging quality may be the first choice, especially in patients aged <40 years admitted to the emergency department with respiratory symptoms.