Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
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Emerg Med Australas · Aug 2006
Comparative StudyVariability in agreement between physicians and nurses when measuring the Glasgow Coma Scale in the emergency department limits its clinical usefulness.
To assess the interrater reliability of the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) between nurses and senior doctors in the ED. ⋯ Although the level of agreement for GCS scores was generally high, a significant proportion of patients had GCS scores which differed by two or more points. This degree of disagreement indicates that clinical decisions should not be based solely on single GCS scores.
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2006
ReviewUse of emergency departments by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
To review published Australian literature about ED care of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. ⋯ Further conclusions of the present literature review were limited by contradictory results in the few studies of reasonable quality and by general concerns about data quality, especially the poor (but slowly improving) identification of Indigenous people in routine ED data sets. Closer collaboration between ED staff and Indigenous hospital liaison staff, combined with regular monitoring of routinely-collected ED data, have the potential to improve Indigenous ED care and so contribute to improvements in Indigenous health.