Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
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Emerg Med Australas · Oct 2017
Randomized Controlled TrialControlled clinical trial exploring the impact of a brief intervention for prevention of falls in an emergency department.
To establish the effectiveness of a brief intervention to prevent falls in older patients presenting to the ED post-discharge. ⋯ A brief intervention was associated with maintenance of function in fallers and reduced hospital admissions, without preventing falls post-discharge.
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Age-related policies allow adolescents to access paediatric and adult EDs. Anecdotally, paediatric and adult EDs report challenges when caring for older and younger adolescents, respectively. Our aim was to describe the characteristics of an adolescent population attending an adult ED, co-located with a tertiary paediatric ED. ⋯ Contrary to reported staff perceptions, adolescent chronic physical illness presentations were not a major burden. Alcohol was likely under-recorded as a contributing factor to presentations.
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Emerg Med Australas · Oct 2017
Hospital use in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal patients with chronic disease.
The objective of this study was to compare rates of hospital utilisation in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples before and after hospital admission for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart failure and/or type 2 diabetes mellitus. ⋯ Aboriginal people use health services in a different manner when compared to non-Aboriginal people. In a subset of patients with chronic disease, high use may be reduced with better access to primary healthcare. Policy-makers and healthcare providers should examine healthcare use from primary to tertiary care among the Aboriginal population, with a particular focus on ED presentations; investigate the underlying causes driving specific patterns of health service utilisation among Aboriginal people; and develop interventions to reduce potential deleterious impacts, and enhance the potential benefits, of specific patterns of healthcare use.