Articles: emergency-services.
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2025
Children exposed to family and domestic violence perpetrated against their mother are at an increased risk of emergency department attendance in childhood.
To determine the association between family and domestic violence (FDV) exposure and ED attendance in Australian children. ⋯ Exposure to FDV is associated with an increased risk of ED attendance in childhood. The findings add to the limited literature providing further support that FDV exposure impacts children's health service utilisation and further supports that children's exposure to FDV as an area of public health concern. Attendance at the ED presents an opportunity for intervention.
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2025
Observational StudyAmbulance offload performance, patient characteristics and disposition for patients offloaded to different areas of the emergency department.
Ambulance transfer of care (TOC) is a key performance indicator for New South Wales EDs, with 90% of ambulances to be offloaded within 30 min of arrival. Nepean Hospital ED has a number of strategies to improve TOC, including ambulatory areas where patients can be offloaded immediately. Offload data are supplied by ambulance and there is no study into its accuracy. The aim is to audit the accuracy of ambulance data of TOC compared to times recorded in the Nepean ED information system, and to examine TOC and patient demographics for different offload destinations. ⋯ Patients arriving by ambulance requiring an acute care bed were likely to be elderly and frail, and suffered substantial ambulance offload delays. Delays to ambulance offload for these patients is likely driven by acute care bed availability and access block.
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2025
Factors associated with extended length of stay for paediatric mental health presentations to EDs in South Western Sydney, Australia.
This study aimed to determine the factors associated with extended length of stay (LOS) for paediatric mental health (MH)-related presentations to the EDs in South Western Sydney (SWS). ⋯ Our findings highlight the need for equitable distribution of resources directed towards at-risk CYP to improve MH outcomes and reduce health system burden.
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Observational Study
Factors associated with hospital revisitation within 7 days among patients discharged at triage: a case-control study.
Existing data are limited for determining the medical conditions best suited for an emergency department (ED) redirection strategy in a heterogeneous, nonurgent patient population. ⋯ Higher age and abdominal pain were associated with hospital revisitation and hospitalization within 7 days among patients directly discharged or redirected by the triage team. Regardless of the triage system in use, there might be patient groups that should be evaluated more cautiously if a triage-based discharge or redirection strategy is to be considered.
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To analyze the possible association between a finding of plasma alkalosis in patients diagnosed with acute heart failure (AHF) in the emergency department (ED) and in-hospital mortality. ⋯ This retrospective analysis of cases in the EAHFE registry found no association between alkalosis and higher in-hospital mortality after AHF. Nor were significant associations found when we analyzed mortality related to probable metabolic vs respiratory alkalosis.