Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Retracted Publication
Non-fatal firearm injuries: Utilization and expenditures for children pre- and post-injury.
Firearm injuries are one of the leading preventable causes of morbidity and mortality among children. Limited information exists about the impact of nonfatal firearm injuries on utilization and expenditures. Our objective was to compare health care encounters and expenditures 1 year before and 1 year following a nonfatal firearm injury. ⋯ There was a 40% increase in children qualifying for complex chronic condition status after firearm injury. Children who experience nonfatal firearm injury have increased number of health care encounters, chronic disease classification, and health care expenditures in the year following the injury. Prevention of firearm injuries in this vulnerable age group may result in considerable reductions in morbidity and health care costs.
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Letter Randomized Controlled Trial
The Adjunctive Effect of Intravenous Magnesium Sulfate in Acute Exacerbation of COPD: A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial.
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While guidelines recommend outpatient management of patients with low-risk pulmonary embolism (PE), little is known about the disposition of patients with PE diagnosed in United States emergency departments (EDs). We sought to determine disposition practices and subsequent health care utilization in patients with acute PE in U.S. EDs. ⋯ Despite guidelines promoting outpatient management, few patients are currently discharged home in the United States; however, practice varies widely across hospitals. Return visit rates were high but most did not result in hospitalization.
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The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has led to devastating repercussions on health care systems worldwide. This viral infection has a broad clinical spectrum (ranging from influenza-like disease, viral pneumonia, and hypoxemia to acute respiratory distress syndrome requiring prolonged intensive care unit stays). The prognostic impact of measuring viral load on nasopharyngeal swab specimens (by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction [RT-PCR]) is yet to be elucidated. ⋯ Respiratory viral load measurement on the first nasopharyngeal swab (by RT-PCR) during initial ED management is neither a predictor of severity nor a predictor of mortality in SARS-CoV-2 infection. Host response to this viral infection along with the extent of preexisting comorbidities might be more foretelling of disease severity than the virus itself.