Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
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Emerg Med Australas · Dec 2015
Dispatcher-assisted cardiopulmonary resuscitation protocol improves diagnosis and resuscitation recommendations for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
Despite recent efforts, most people are not trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), which has a major impact on survival following cardiac arrest (CA). We have set up a dispatcher-assisted CPR protocol at our call centre, based on international guidelines issued in 2010. The aim of our study was to evaluate the impact of this protocol on CA diagnosis and quantity of recommendations given by telephone dispatchers to untrained witnesses. ⋯ Implementation of a dispatcher-assisted CPR protocol was efficient in improving both CA diagnosis and CPR recommendations given to untrained witnesses for out-of-hospital CA with a very short time of dispatcher training. It is a simple and efficacious measure, at no additional cost and with the promises of improving prognosis following cardiac arrest in a centre not equipped with computerised dispatcher support programmes.
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Emerg Med Australas · Dec 2015
Effects of alternating hands during in-hospital one-handed chest compression: A randomised cross-over manikin trial.
We evaluated the decrease in chest compression depth during continuous one-handed chest compression (OHCC) in an in-hospital paediatric arrest setting, and whether switching hands could delay the decrease in chest compression depth. ⋯ Chest compression depth decreased significantly when continuous OHCC was performed without switching hands. Alternating hands every 30 s can delay the decrease in MCD and maintain deeper MCD for longer.
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Emerg Med Australas · Dec 2015
Management of mental health patients in Victorian emergency departments: A 10 year follow-up study.
Despite efforts to restructure mental health (MH) services across Victoria, the social and economic burden of MH illness continues to grow. This study compares MH presentations to EDs with a study undertaken 10 years earlier. ⋯ Despite increasing MH-related presentations, changes in ED practice have allowed improvements in delivery of care through a shortened ED length of stay and the virtual elimination of very long stays over 24 h. However, there continues to be significant variability in management and performance across hospital sites. Identifying which interventions lead to standout site performance, and subsequent application more broadly, may improve future ED delivery of care.
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Emerg Med Australas · Dec 2015
Adolescent presentations with alcohol intoxication to the emergency department at Joondalup Health Campus in 2013.
To document the number of adolescents aged 16 years and under presenting to the ED at Joondalup Health Campus (JHC) with problems related primarily to alcohol intoxication, and document information about these presentations. ⋯ Adolescents requiring review in an ED for alcohol intoxication are most often brought in by ambulance or police in the late evening or early morning. They are most likely to have high BALs and a significant proportion will have a GCS <14.