Annals of surgery
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Multicenter Study
Emergency department discharge of patients with a negative cranial computed tomography scan after minimal head injury.
To determine the negative predictive value of cranial computed tomography (CT) scanning in a prospective series of patients and whether hospital admission for observation is mandatory after a negative diagnostic evaluation after minimal head injury (MHI). ⋯ Patients with a cranial CT scan, obtained on a helical CT scanner, that shows no intracerebral injury and who do not have other body system injuries or a persistence of any neurologic finding can be safely discharged from the emergency department without a period of either inpatient or outpatient observation. Implementation of this practice could result in a potential decrease of more than 500,000 hospital admissions annually.