Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2023
Multicultural emergency medicine epidemiology: A health economic analysis of patient visits.
There is growing evidence to suggest that culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) patients cost the health system more than non-CALD patients because of a higher burden of disease and increased resource consumption. The present study aimed to compare the ED resource utilisation of CALD and non-CALD patients at a tertiary hospital in Sydney, Australia. ⋯ CALD status is not an independent influence on ED resource utilisation but other explanatory variables such as increased age and altered case-mix appear to have a much greater influence. There may, however, be other reasons to consider CALD loading such as equity in healthcare and to address poorer overall health outcomes for CALD patients.
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2023
The rise and falls of electronic scooters: A Tasmanian perspective on electronic scooter injuries.
Electronic scooter (eScooter) popularity has soared, despite public concerns around injury risk. We aimed to explore the burden of injury from eScooters presenting to Tasmania's major trauma centre during the first 6 months of the Hobart eScooter trial. ⋯ Overall, our 6-month prospective dataset shows that the Hobart eScooter trial has been associated with few major injuries.
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2023
Does wearing a surgical mask influence face touching by healthcare workers? A retrospective cohort study.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers (HCW) in our ED were advised against and actively discouraged from wearing masks when not seeing respiratory patients, as mask wearing was thought to increase the risk of droplet transmission by face touching. The primary objective of the present study was to determine whether HCW using face masks were more or less likely to touch their faces than those not wearing masks. ⋯ Mask wearing did not change face touching or the duration of face touches. However, significantly fewer mucosal touches were observed when wearing a mask, which may help to reduce nosocomial droplet transmission of viruses.
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2023
The Emerging Drugs Network of Australia - Victoria Clinical Registry: A state-wide illicit substance surveillance and alert network.
With an increasingly dynamic global illicit drug market, including the emergence of novel psychoactive substances, many jurisdictions have moved to establish toxicosurveillance systems to enable timely detection of harmful substances in the community. This paper describes the methodology for the Emerging Drugs Network of Australia - Victoria (EDNAV) project, a clinical registry focused on the collection of high-quality clinical and analytical data from ED presentations involving illicit drug intoxications. Drug intelligence collected from the project is utilised by local health authorities with the aim to identify patterns of drug use and emerging drugs of concern. ⋯ The EDNAV project represents the first centralised system providing near real-time monitoring of community drug use in Victoria and is fundamental in facilitating evidence-based public health intervention.
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2023
Observational StudyToxicology presentations to a tertiary unit in New South Wales during the COVID-19 pandemic first wave: A retrospective comparison study.
To compare presentation numbers, class of exposure, poison severity score (PSS) and drugs ingested by patients in a tertiary toxicology service during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic to the corresponding time periods in 2018 and 2019. ⋯ There was a relative increase in toxicology presentations during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to an overall decrease in presentations to ED. Recreational drug use increased significantly during the pandemic compared to 2018.