Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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To describe the availability of next-of-kin (NOK) for proxy consent over the 24-hour time period following presentation of major trauma patients to a Level I trauma center. ⋯ One third of the trauma patients in this study did not have NOK available two hours following arrival in the emergency department. For time-critical research protocols, the time to NOK contact can significantly impact the ability to ensure prompt enrollment and treatment in clinical trials. Further studies are needed to assess the generalizability and consistency of these data.
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To characterize psychiatric-related emergency department visits (PREDVs) among adults in the United States for the year 2000 and to analyze PREDV trends from 1992 to 2000. ⋯ Psychiatric-related ED visits represent a substantial and growing number of ED visits each year. Patient characteristics influence the likelihood of a PREDV. Further research is needed to better understand the role that hospital EDs play in the delivery of health care services to those with mental illness.
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To determine how often emergency physicians (EPs) scanning the abdominal aorta (AA) of nonfasted emergency department (ED) patients are able to visualize the entire AA. ⋯ Significant portions of AA (at least one third of its length) were not visualized on bedside US in 8% of nonfasted patients; this rate is higher than radiology studies of fasted patients receiving US for evaluation of their aortas.
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Comparative Study
Customer satisfaction in a large urban fire department emergency medical services system.
The purpose of this study was to determine if emergency medical services (EMS) customer satisfaction could be assessed using telephone-survey methods. The process by which customer satisfaction with the EMS service in a large, fire department-based EMS system is reported, and five month results are presented. ⋯ It is possible to conduct a survey of EMS customer satisfaction using telephone-survey methods. Although difficulties exist in contacting patients, useful information is made available with this method. Such surveys should be an integral part of any EMS system's quality-improvement efforts. In this survey, the overwhelming majority of patients, both transported and not transported, were satisfied with their encounter with EMS.