Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Alcohol use is a major and unpredictable driver of emergency department (ED) visits. Regional Twitter activity correlates ecologically with behavioral outcomes. No such correlation has been established in real time. ⋯ In a single state, a statistically significant relationship was observed between the hourly number of alcohol-related tweets and the hourly number of alcohol-related ED visits. Real-time Twitter monitoring may help predict alcohol-related surges in ED visits. Future studies should include larger numbers of EDs and natural language processing.
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An increasing number of U.S. emergency departments (EDs) have implemented ED-based HIV testing programs since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued revised HIV testing recommendations for clinical settings in 2006. In 2010, the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) set an linkage-to-care (LTC) rate goal of 85% within 90 days of HIV diagnosis. LTC rates for newly diagnosed HIV-infected patients vary markedly by site, and many are suboptimal. The optimal approach for LTC in the ED setting remains unknown. ⋯ Intensive LTC protocols had a higher LTC rate and a higher proportion of programs that surpassed the >85% NHAS goal compared to nonintensive methods, suggesting that, when possible, ED-based HIV testing programs should adopt intensive LTC strategies to improve LTC outcomes. However, intensive LTC protocols most often required involvement of multidisciplinary non-ED professionals and external research funding. Our findings provide a foundation for developing best practices for ED-based HIV LTC programs.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Telemedicine Provides Non-Inferior Research Informed Consent for Remote Study Enrollment: A Randomized Controlled Trial.
Telemedicine networks are beginning to provide an avenue for conducting emergency medicine research, but using telemedicine to recruit participants for clinical trials has not been validated. The goal of this consent study was to determine whether patient comprehension of telemedicine-enabled research informed consent is noninferior to standard face-to-face (F2F) research informed consent. ⋯ Telemedicine is noninferior to F2F consent for delivering research informed consent, with no detected differences in comprehension and patient-reported understanding. This consent study will inform design of future telemedicine-enabled clinical trials.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
A Multicomponent Intervention Including Texting to Promote Tobacco Abstinence in Emergency Department Smokers: A Pilot Study.
Emergency department (ED) patients commonly smoke. Current treatment approaches use motivational interviewing, which is effective, but resource-intensive. Mobile health approaches may be more feasible and generalizable. ⋯ A texting program, combined with pharmacotherapy and a quitline referral, is feasible and may promote tobacco abstinence in ED smokers. A larger trial is planned to assess these results.