Articles: emergency-services.
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Emerg Med Australas · Aug 2023
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter StudySodium chloride or plasmalyte-148 for patients presenting to emergency departments with diabetic ketoacidosis: A nested cohort study within a multicentre, cluster, crossover, randomised, controlled trial.
To test the hypothesis that fluid resuscitation in the ED with plasmalyte-148 (PL) compared with 0.9% sodium chloride (SC) would result in a lower proportion of patients with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) requiring intensive care unit (ICU) admission. ⋯ Patients with DKA treated with PL compared with SC in the EDs had similar rates of requiring ICU admission.
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Emerg Med Australas · Aug 2023
Case ReportsFeasibility of a rapid diagnosis discussion tool for reducing misdiagnosis of patients presenting to emergency departments with abdominal pain.
Providing accurate and timely diagnoses is challenging in ED settings. We evaluated the feasibility and effectiveness of a short, structured rapid diagnosis discussion (RaDD) between a patient's initial doctor and a second doctor for patients presenting to ED with abdominal pain. ⋯ RaDD encouraged clinicians to take a more cautious, risk-averse approach to care and improved confidence in their diagnostic decisions. However, cost effectiveness of these outcomes and possible implementation barriers need to be further considered in subsequent studies.
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Emerg Med Australas · Aug 2023
Disposition of patients utilising the virtual emergency department service in southeast region of Melbourne (SERVED-1).
Supported by the state government, three health networks partnered to initiate a virtual ED (VED), as part of a broader roll-out of emergency telehealth services in Victoria. The aim of the present study (Southeast Region Virtual Emergency Department-1 [SERVED-1]) was to report the initial 5-month experience and included all patients assessed through the service over the first 5 months (1 February 2022 to 30 June 2022). ⋯ Initial experience demonstrated a significant increase in adoption of the service and an overall avoidance of physical ED attendance by a majority of patients. These results support ongoing VED consultations, complemented by follow up and health economic evaluations.