Articles: emergency-services.
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Mislabeled specimen collection in the emergency department has the potential to significantly harm patients. Studies suggest that improvement efforts can reduce specimen rejection from the laboratory and reduce mislabeled specimens in emergency departments and hospital-wide. ⋯ Improving patient safety in complex clinical settings requires a systems approach. Using the established framework of clinical microsystems, along with a tenacious and persistent interdisciplinary team, helped create a reliable process for minimizing mislabeled specimens in the emergency department.
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We used machine learning to identify the highest impact components of emergency department (ED) pediatric readiness for predicting in-hospital survival among children cared for in US trauma centers. ⋯ ED pediatric readiness components related to specific policies, personnel, and equipment were the strongest predictors of pediatric survival and worked synergistically when combined.
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Violence is a critical problem in the emergency department (ED) and patients experiencing mental health crises are at greater violence risk; however, tools appropriate for assessing violence risk in the ED are limited. Our goal was to evaluate the utility of the Fordham Risk Screening Tool (FRST) in reliability assessing violence risk in adult ED patients with acute mental health crises through evaluation of test characteristics compared to a reference standard. ⋯ These findings support the potential utility of the FRST when used to assess violence risk in adult ED patients experiencing a mental health crisis. Future research with more diverse populations and ED settings is warranted.