Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
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Clinical handover plays a vital role in patient care and has been investigated in hospital settings, but less attention has been paid to the interface between prehospital and hospital settings. This paper reviews the published research on these handovers. ⋯ This review raises concerns about handovers at the interface between prehospital and hospital settings. The quality of existing research in this area is relatively poor and further high-quality research is required to understand this important part of emergency care. We need to understand the complexity of handover better to grasp the challenges of context and interprofessional relationships before we reach for tools and techniques to standardise part of the handover process.
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A short cut review was carried out to establish whether point-of-care abdominal ultrasound could affect the emergency department (ED) length of stay (LOS) of children attending with suspected appendicitis. Using the reported searches, one paper presented the best evidence to answer the clinical question. ⋯ It is concluded that point-of-care abdominal ultrasound has sufficient specificity to be used to reduce LOS of paediatric patients in the ED with positive results for appendicitis. It is insufficiently sensitive to be used to rule out appendicitis.
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A short cut review was carried out to establish whether local anaesthetic should be instilled before or after eye examination in suspected corneal foreign body. 83 papers were found in Medline, Embase and the Cochrane Library using the reported searches, but none presented any evidence to answer the clinical question. It is concluded that there is no evidence to guide the time of installation and that local advice should be followed.
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A short-cut review was carried out to establish whether probiotics reduced crying time in babies with infantile colic. Using the reported searches 88 papers were found, of which five presented the best evidence to answer the clinical question. The author, date and country of publication, patient group studied, study type, relevant outcomes, results and study weaknesses of the best papers are tabulated. It is concluded that there is evidence that the administration of probiotics decreases the severity and duration of infantile colic when compared with placebo and some proprietary remedies.