Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Review
Out-of-Hospital Respiratory Measures To Identify Patients With Serious Injury: A Systematic Review.
The objective was to systematically review the published literature on the diagnostic accuracy of out-of-hospital respiratory measures for identifying patients with serious injury, focusing on measures feasible for field triage by emergency medical services personnel. ⋯ Data on the accuracy of out-of-hospital respiratory measures for field triage are limited and of low quality. Based on available research, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, and need for airway intervention all have low sensitivity, high specificity, and poor to fair discrimination for identifying seriously injured patients.
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Comment Review
Out-of-Hospital Circulatory Measures To Identify Patients With Serious Injury: A Systematic Review.
The objective was to systematically identify and summarize out-of-hospital measures of circulatory compromise as diagnostic predictors of serious injury, focusing on measures usable by emergency medical services to inform field triage decisions. ⋯ Out-of-hospital circulatory measures are associated with poor to fair discrimination for identifying trauma patients with serious injuries. Many seriously injured patients have normal circulatory measures (low sensitivity), but when present, the measures are highly specific for identifying patients with serious injuries.
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Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbations (eCOPD) can be life-threatening and costly. Emergency department (ED) observation units (ED-Obs) offer short-term care to safely reduce preventable hospitalizations. Accurately identifying eCOPD patients who can be discharged safely will improve outcomes. ⋯ Routine clinical variables do not identify eCOPD patients who can be safely discharged from ED-Obs. Change in resting Borg score during the course of ED-Obs treatment safely identifies patients for discharge. Prospective, external validation is needed to incorporate serial Borg scores in ED-Obs disposition decision for improved safety.
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We have previously shown that older adults discharged from the emergency department (ED) experience an increased disability burden within a 6-month time period after ED discharge. The objective of this study was to identify risk factors associated with increased disability burden among older adults discharged from the ED. ⋯ Among older adults discharged from the ED, several risk factors were associated with increased disability burden over the following 6 months, including age ≥85, being unmarried, lower-extremity weakness, and physical frailty. Further research is needed to evaluate whether risk stratification based on nonmodifiable factors or interventions targeting modifiable risk factors improve functional outcomes for older adults discharged from the ED.