Articles: emergency-services.
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The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals requires that an organized quality assurance program be in place for all emergency departments under its review. The authors' institution has had a quality assurance program since 1978. The program is structured to assess medical records against pre-established standards of medical care; to review all radiologic, electrocardiographic and bacteriologic culture reports to avoid discrepancies following initial clinical intervention; and to analyze all emergency department deaths. ⋯ One hundred eighteen patients with positive urine cultures and 35 patients with positive throat cultures were not treated or were incorrectly treated during their initial visit. These patients were notified of the need for additional therapy. There were 158 emergency department deaths, and 11 were thought to have been possibly preventable.
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Fortschr Neurol Psychiatr · Mar 1984
[Development and function of the psychiatric crisis and emergency service in Mannheim].
The setting up of a psychiatric emergency and crisis service during the years 1974 to 1980 in Mannheim forms part of the evolvement of a central psychiatric overall care programme with emphasis on patients residing in the same region, that is to say, close to the psychiatric facilities; within this framework, the role played by the emergency service is preferably of an auxiliary and additional nature, over and above the already existing regular care facilities. Since the emergency and crisis service forms a part of a regular psychiatric care network, its principal functions are: 1. First diagnosis and, in connection therewith, the decision whether 2. acute intervention in an existing crisis should be effected within the emergency service, or 3. whether further treatment must be instituted with a psychiatric or internistic or social partner of the emergency service. ⋯ Over and above, the emergency service has to look after a special small group of patients not covered by any other psychiatric service on account of their social disorganisation , frequently also because they are addicts. As should be expected, there is an almost continuous drop in the referral to the psychiatric service, the farther away the patients live from the seat of the emergency service. This, however, applies in a very similar manner to the regular outpatient services and also to the entire psychiatric care available to the residents of Mannheim.