Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
-
Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2025
Supporting clinicians post exposure to potentially traumatic events: Emergency department peer support program evaluation.
Workers in EDs are regularly exposed to potentially traumatic events. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been exponential interest in peer support programs (PSPs) in a range of settings. We describe a PSP implemented in 2017 at University Hospital Geelong (UHG) ED together with results of a survey. ⋯ ED Doctors place high value on the PSP.
-
Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2025
Experience, knowledge, practices and attitudes of emergency department medical staff regarding teledermatology.
The present study aimed to assess self-reported experience, knowledge, practices and attitudes of ED medical staff regarding teledermatology. ⋯ Skin photography image quality, knowledge and adherence to medicolegal policy were poor among ED medical staff. Education could reduce risk and improve outcomes.
-
Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2025
Utility of computed tomography brain scans in intubated patients with overdose.
Describe the yield of computed tomography brain (CTB) scans in patients intubated for drug overdose. ⋯ Routine imaging of patients intubated for overdose without clinical indication is unjustified.
-
Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2025
Learning from the lived experiences of medical women working and studying at the national hospital in Fiji: A mixed methods study.
Our study aimed to explore the experience of attaining higher education among women in medicine at the largest national hospital in Fiji, focusing on barriers and enablers to completing training, and to explore women's perception of gender-based discrimination in the world of medicine. Findings subsequently informed evidence-based recommendations on enablers and barriers at the hospital and medical university to improve experiences of women in medicine. ⋯ Challenges only become true barriers when enablers are eclipsed by them. Institutional support helps mitigate these barriers especially for those women who lack social support. Gender based discrimination continues in the Pacific, commonly covertly, especially in terms of policy gaps regarding maternity leave during training.
-
Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2025
Observational StudyAmbulance offload performance, patient characteristics and disposition for patients offloaded to different areas of the emergency department.
Ambulance transfer of care (TOC) is a key performance indicator for New South Wales EDs, with 90% of ambulances to be offloaded within 30 min of arrival. Nepean Hospital ED has a number of strategies to improve TOC, including ambulatory areas where patients can be offloaded immediately. Offload data are supplied by ambulance and there is no study into its accuracy. The aim is to audit the accuracy of ambulance data of TOC compared to times recorded in the Nepean ED information system, and to examine TOC and patient demographics for different offload destinations. ⋯ Patients arriving by ambulance requiring an acute care bed were likely to be elderly and frail, and suffered substantial ambulance offload delays. Delays to ambulance offload for these patients is likely driven by acute care bed availability and access block.