Annals of emergency medicine
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Multicenter Study
Telephone follow-up after the emergency department visit: experience with acute asthma. On behalf of the MARC Investigators.
This study explored how a variety of demographic and illness-related factors were associated with telephone follow-up among patients visiting the emergency department for acute asthma. ⋯ In contrast to some reports in the literature, telephone contact rates were high. However, successful contact was not equally likely among all patient groups. Although the high contact rates support the feasibility of telephone follow-up of asthmatic patients visiting the ED, the results also act as a reminder of the potential biases that may arise when using telephone contact for clinical, quality assurance, and research reasons.
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Case Reports Multicenter Study Clinical Trial
Successful cricothyrotomy after thrombolytic therapy for acute myocardial infarction: a report of two cases.
Cricothyrotomy is an emergency airway procedure that is generally performed after failure of primary methods for securing the airway. Coagulopathy has traditionally been considered a relative contraindication to cricothyrotomy, but there is little evidence in the literature to support this. There have been no reports of successful cricothyrotomy in a patient who had received systemic thrombolytic therapy. ⋯ Intubation was impossible, and a cricothyrotomy was performed. Significant bleeding was controlled initially with packing and was semielectively explored later in the ICU with ligation of several small bleeding vessels. Prior administration of thrombolytic therapy does not preclude successful cricothyrotomy.
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We sought to characterize the clinical manifestations, outcome, and etiology of inadvertent ketamine overdose in the emergency department. ⋯ No adverse outcomes were noted in 9 healthy children treated in the ED who inadvertently received 5 to 100 times the intended dose of ketamine. Toxicity manifested as prolonged sedation in all 9 and brief respiratory depression in 4. The margin of safety in ketamine overdose may be wide, although less common and more serious outcomes cannot be excluded by this small, self-reported sample.
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Multicenter Study
Emergency department impact of the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing.
To collect descriptive epidemiologic injury data on patients who suffered acute injuries after the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing and to describe the effect on metropolitan emergency departments. ⋯ EMS providers tended to transport the more seriously injured patients, who tended to arrive in a second wave at EDs. The closest hospitals received the greatest number of victims by all transport methods. The effects on pharmaceutical use and ancillary service were consistent with the care of penetrating and blunt trauma. The diagnoses in the ED support previous reports of the complex but often nonlethal nature of bombing injuries.
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Multicenter Study
The Ontario Prehospital Advanced Life Support (OPALS) study Part II: Rationale and methodology for trauma and respiratory distress patients. OPALS Study Group.
The Ontario Prehospital Advanced Life Support (OPALS) Study represents the largest prehospital study yet conducted, worldwide. This study will involve more than 25,000 cardiac arrest, trauma, and critically ill patients over an 8-year period (1994-2002). The current article, Part II, describes in detail the rationale and methodology for major trauma and respiratory distress patients and for an economic evaluation of Advanced Life Support (ALS) programs in the OPALS Study. The OPALS Study, using a rigorous controlled methodology and a large sample size, should clearly indicate the benefit in trauma and respiratory distress patient survival and morbidity that results from the widespread introduction of prehospital ALS programs to communities of many different sizes. [Stiell IG, Wells GA, Spaite DW, Nichol G, O'Brien B, Munkley DP, Field BJ, Lyver MB, Luinstra LG, Dagnone E, Campeau T, Ward R, Anderson S, for the OPALS Study Group: The Ontario Prehospital Advanced Life Support (OPALS) Study Part II: Rationale and methodology for trauma and respiratory distress patients.