J Emerg Med
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Review Case Reports
Omental infarction: case series and review of the literature.
Omental infarction is a rare disease entity that can cause acute or subacute abdominal pain. In the past, it was thought that omental infarction mainly occurred on the right side because it was detected when surgery was performed on patients who complained of abdominal pain on the right side. ⋯ Omental infarction should be included in the differential diagnosis list of acute abdominal pain because it can occur at any site. In addition, because this disease runs a self-limited course, conservative care is recommended. Thus, unnecessary operations can be avoided in cases where omental infarction is diagnosed by imaging studies.
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There is no short screening tool for perpetrators of intimate partner violence (IPV), although one is needed. ⋯ We successfully derived and validated a three-question perpetrator of IPV scale that can be used in a busy ED or office setting.
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Patient crowding and boarding in Emergency Departments (EDs) impair the quality of care as well as patient safety and satisfaction. Improved timing of inpatient discharges could positively affect ED boarding, and this hypothesis can be tested with computer modeling. ⋯ Timing of inpatient discharges had an impact on the need to board admitted patients. This model demonstrates the potential to reduce or eliminate ED boarding by improving inpatient discharge timing in anticipation of the daily surge in ED demand for inpatient beds.
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Internet access and online pharmacies are a resource for purchasing medications. It is unclear if this venue is being used by emergency department (ED) patients to obtain medications. ⋯ Approximately 5% of ED patients used the Internet to obtain medications. Contrary to our hypothesis, younger patients were not more likely to use the Internet for medications. Patients on multiple medications and those with prescription plans used online pharmacies more frequently.