Articles: emergency-services.
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To determine how often emergency department physicians prescribe medications that can adversely interact with other medications that their patients are already taking, which patients are at highest risk for potential adverse reactions, and which medications most frequently lead to adverse interactions. ⋯ In the emergency departments studied, a medication history was recorded on every patient and was available to physicians, but physicians did not routinely screen for potential drug interactions. Further safeguards are needed to protect patients from receiving medications that could produce adverse interactions.
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One city's solution to overcrowded emergency departments and a shortage of beds was the installation of an ambulance-diversion system, whereby ambulances carrying patients with relatively minor injuries were diverted, when necessary, from the city's busy emergency departments to less crowded ones in neighboring counties.
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A number of reports have suggested that the incidence of deliberate self-harm has been declining since the late 1970s. Most of these findings have emerged from studies of hospital inpatients, but a large proportion of patients are sent home directly from Accident and Emergency Departments. ⋯ It is argued that age-specific trends, based on inpatient statistics, could be distorted by Accident and Emergency discharges. It is recommended that future epidemiological studies of deliberate self-harm include patients who progress no further than the Accident and Emergency Department.
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When planning the average number of bed occupancy days per year at a hospital providing emergency hospitalization one should take into account the demurrage of reserve beds which are needed for urgent hospitalization of patients. The influence of emergency demurrage of reserve beds on occupancy rate is not determined by the absolute number of these beds and their share in the structure of hospital bed fund. The number of reserve beds depends on the number of emergency patients hospitalized and the average length of hospital stay.