Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Comparative Study
Error identification, disclosure, and reporting: practice patterns of three emergency medicine provider types.
To gather preliminary data on how the three major types of emergency medicine (EM) providers, physicians, nurses (RNs), and out-of-hospital personnel (EMTs), differ in error identification, disclosure, and reporting. ⋯ This study suggests that error identification, disclosure, and reporting challenge all members of the ED care delivery team. Provider-specific education and enhanced teamwork training will be required to further the transformation of the ED into a high-reliability organization.
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To test the hypothesis that xanthochromia may be observed in traumatic lumbar puncture (LP). Xanthochromia, the yellow discoloration of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) caused by hemoglobin catabolism, is classically thought to arise within several hours after subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). The presence of xanthochromic supernatant is often used to distinguish the elevated red blood cell (RBC) count observed in the CSF of SAH from the elevated RBC count observed after traumatic LP. ⋯ Cerebrospinal fluid xanthochromia may be observed within two hours after traumatic LP and sooner in samples with greater than 10000 RBC/ microL. Conversely, xanthochromia in traumatic LP with less than 5000 RBC warrants further investigation for SAH. When the CSF RBC count is elevated above 10000 RBC/ microL, or the time between sample acquisition and analysis is prolonged, the clinician should not rely on xanthochromia to confirm SAH.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Clinical Trial
Efficacy of an educational Web site for educating physicians about bioterrorism.
To determine whether a Web-based educational intervention improves emergency physicians' knowledge about bioterrorism and to survey physicians' knowledge and sources of information on bioterrorism. ⋯ Providing physicians information on bioterrorism through simulated cases and continuous access to an educational Web site does not increase knowledge of bioterrorism. Physicians are more likely to use media reports for their primary source of information.
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Medical record review (MRR) studies have been reported to make up 25% of all scientific studies published in emergency medical (EM) journals. However, unlike other study designs, there are no standards for reporting MRRs and very little literature on the methodology for conducting them. The purpose of this article is to provide the reader with methodological guidance regarding the strengths and weaknesses of these types of studies.