Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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The objectives were to determine attitudes and perceptions (A&P) of emergency medicine (EM) residents toward emergency department (ED) routine provider-driven rapid HIV testing services and the impact of both a focused training program (FTP) and implementation of HIV testing on A&P. ⋯ Emergency medicine residents conceptually supported HIV testing services. Most A&P were favorably influenced by both the FTP and the implementation. All areas of negative A&P involved operational requirements, which may have influenced the low overall uptake of HIV testing during the study period.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Screening and brief intervention to reduce marijuana use among youth and young adults in a pediatric emergency department.
Marijuana was involved in 209,563 emergency department (ED) visits in 2006, according to the Drug Abuse Warning Network. Although screening and brief intervention (SBI) has been effective in changing drinking among ED patients in a number of studies, tests of marijuana SBI in a pediatric emergency department (PED) have not yet been reported. The aim of this pilot study was to test whether SBI is effective in reducing marijuana consumption among youth and young adults presenting to a PED with a diverse range of clinical entities. ⋯ A preliminary trial of SBI promoted marijuana abstinence and reduced consumption among PED patients aged 14-21 years. A no-contact condition for the NAC group over the year after enrollment was insufficient to capture enrollees for follow-up across a range of baseline acuity.
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This article is the outcome of a consensus building workshop entitled, "Overcoming Barriers to Implementation and Dissemination" convened at the 2009 Academic Emergency Medicine Consensus Conference, ''Public Health in the ED: Surveillance, Screening, and Intervention." The participants were asked to address potential methods for overcoming barriers to the dissemination and implementation in the emergency department (ED) of evidenced-based practices to improve public health. The panel discussed three broad areas of interest including methods for disseminating evidence-based practices, barriers encountered during the process of implementation, and the importance of involvement in activities outside the ED including engagement in policy development and improvement. ⋯ The recommendations included 1) researchers and advocates should disseminate findings through multiple forums beyond peer-reviewed publications when an ED-based public health intervention has enough evidence to support integration into the routine practice of emergency care; 2) local barriers to implementation of public health interventions should be recognized and well understood from multiple perspectives prior to implementation; 3) innovation must be put into place and adapted based on local institutional context and culture as barriers and the best methods for overcoming them will vary across institutions; and 4) use of legislation, regulation, and incentives outside of the ED should support and strengthen ED-based interventions. For each area of interest, research dimensions to extend the current understanding of methods for effectively and efficiently implementing evidence-based public health interventions in the ED were discussed and consensus was achieved.
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In the emergency department (ED), a significant amount of radiation exposure is due to computed tomography (CT) scans performed for the diagnosis of appendicitis. Children are at increased risk of developing cancer from low-dose radiation and it is therefore desirable to utilize CT only when appropriate. Ultrasonography (US) eliminates radiation but has sensitivity inferior to that of CT. We describe an interdisciplinary initiative to use a staged US and CT pathway to maximize diagnostic accuracy while minimizing radiation exposure. ⋯ Half of the patients who were treated using this pathway were managed with definitive US alone with an acceptable negative appendectomy rate (7%) and a missed appendicitis rate of less than 0.5%. Visualization of a normal appendix (negative US) was sufficient to obviate the need for a CT in the authors' experience. Emergency physicians (EPs) used an equivocal US in conjunction with clinical assessment to care for one-third of study patients without a CT and with no known cases of missed appendicitis. These data suggest that by employing US first on all children needing diagnostic imaging for diagnosis of acute appendicitis, radiation exposure may be substantially decreased without a decrease in safety or efficacy.
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The emergency department (ED) visit provides an opportunity to impact the health of the public throughout the entire spectrum of care, from prevention to treatment. As the federal government has a vested interest in funding research and providing programmatic opportunities that promote the health of the public, emergency medicine (EM) is prime to develop a research agenda to advance the field. EM researchers need to be aware of federal funding opportunities, which entails an understanding of the organizational structure of the federal agencies that fund medical research, and the rules and regulations governing applications for grants. ⋯ EM requires a broad skill set from a multitude of medical disciplines, and conducting research in the field will require looking for funding opportunities in a variety of traditional and not so traditional places within and without the federal government. The following is the discussion of a moderated session at the 2009 Academic Emergency Medicine consensus conference that included panel discussants from the National Institutes of Mental Health, Drug Abuse, and Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Further information is also provided to discuss those agencies and centers not represented.