Articles: emergency-department.
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Emergency department (ED) screening for child physical abuse has been widely implemented, with uncertain effects on child abuse identification. Our goal was to determine the effect of screening on referrals to child protective services (CPS) identifying abuse. ⋯ Routine screening did not affect initial or subsequent referrals to CPS.
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Observational Study
Operational outcomes of community-to-academic emergency department patient transfers.
Many patients require inter-hospital transfer (IHT) to tertiary Emergency Departments (EDs) to access specialty services. The purpose of this study is to determine operational outcomes for patients undergoing IHT to a tertiary academic ED, with an emphasis on timing and specialty consult utilization. ⋯ Transferred patients represented a larger proportion of ED volume during evening and overnight hours, received more consults, and had higher likelihood of admission. Consults for transfers were disproportionately surgical subspecialties, though few patients went directly to a procedure. These findings may have operational implications in optimizing availability of specialty services across regionalized health systems.
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The COVID-19 pandemic was managed in part by the rapid development of vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics including antiviral agents and advances in emergency airway and ventilatory management. The impact of these therapeutic advances on clinically pertinent metrics of emergency care have not been well-studied. ⋯ Operational and clinical outcomes of ED-based treatment of individuals with COVID-19 improved in the first two years of the pandemic. This improvement is likely multifactorial and includes the development and deployment of SARS-CoV-2-specific vaccines, therapeutic agents, and improved healthcare delivery in the ED and elsewhere addressing management of airway and ventilatory status, as well as increased innate immunity in the general population.
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Pediatric emergency care · Dec 2024
Case ReportsPoint-of-Care Ultrasound Evaluation of Pediatric Osteomyelitis in the Emergency Department: A Case Series.
Musculoskeletal and soft tissue complaints commonly present to the pediatric emergency department and literature supports the use point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in the diagnosis of these complaints. The diagnosis of osteomyelitis typically involves laboratory testing with inflammatory biomarkers, imaging with x-ray, and often magnetic resonance imaging with test results often not immediately available. We report a case series of children initially evaluated with POCUS for osteomyelitis. The POCUS may expedite diagnosis and treatment when used as the initial test in children with suspected osteomyelitis in the emergency department.