J Emerg Med
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Multicenter Study
Patients Who Leave the Emergency Department Without Being Seen and Their Follow-Up Behavior: A Retrospective Descriptive Analysis.
Past studies suggest that patients who leave without being seen (LWBS) by a physician from a hospital's emergency department (ED) represent a quality and safety concern, and thus LWBS rates have often been used as an ED performance metric. There are few recent studies, however, that have examined the characteristics of the LWBS population at hospitals in the United States. ⋯ LWBS patients are high ED utilizers who may be effectively targeted by "hotspotting." Our 11.5% admission rate at return after LWBS compares favorably with the overall 20.9% admission rate at the study EDs and represents a small minority of all LWBS visits. Given the paucity of return ED visits after interval clinic encounters, our data suggest that patients who were seen in clinic had their medical complaint adequately resolved on a non-emergent outpatient basis, and that increased LWBS rates may reflect poor access to timely clinic-based care rather than intrinsic systemic issues within the ED.
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Multicenter Study
Validation of the O3DY French Version (O3DY-F) for the Screening of Cognitive Impairment in Community Seniors in the Emergency Department.
It is recommended that older patients undergo systematic mental status screening when presenting to the emergency department (ED). However, the tools available are not necessarily adapted to the ED environment, therefore, quicker and easier tools are needed. ⋯ The O3DY-F is a useful and effective tool to screen for delirium and undetected cognitive impairment among a French-speaking cohort in the ED.