Articles: emergency-services.
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Echocardiography in the emergency room presents exciting practice possibilities that can facilitate prompt and reliable diagnostic evaluations in patients with suspected cardiovascular emergencies. Echocardiography has the diagnostic potentials to evaluate the entire spectrum of cardiovascular abnormalities short of delineating coronary anatomy and evaluation of the conduction system. By reliably assessing the global and regional function, visualizing the cardiovascular structures from multiple tomographic planes, and quantitating hemodynamic abnormalities, echocardiography should be able to assist emergency room physician's evaluation and triage of the patients with chest pain syndrome, unexplained dyspnea, hypotension, shock, chest trauma, and cardiac arrest, whereby hopefully minimizing the unnecessary admission to the hospital and facilitating inhospital evaluation of the admitted patients with echocardiographic information. ⋯ Whether an emergency room physician can perform and interpret echocardiographic examinations satisfactorily will depend on his/her level of training and continuing education in this area. Currently, there is no established guideline for performing echocardiography in the emergency room. Further clinical investigations are necessary to define the most optimal and economical utilization of this versatile imaging and hemodynamic diagnostic modality in the emergency room.
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Can J Public Health · Mar 1995
An evaluation of a hospital-based drinking and driving prevention program.
For the past four years, Victoria Hospital has provided a drinking and driving prevention program: IMPACT - Impaired Minds Produced by Alcohol Cause Trauma. The program provides information to Grade 11 students about the potential "impact" of alcohol-related trauma on themselves, their family and their future. ⋯ Determining whether or not increased knowledge and changed attitude in fact results in changed behaviour is beyond the scope of this study. Further longitudinal, quantitative evaluation of program effectiveness, based on traffic safety indices, is being undertaken.
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Nurs. Clin. North Am. · Mar 1995
Improving the admission process from the emergency department to the critical care areas.
The CCU and CSU successfully established an interdisciplinary QI team. Through the implementation of the QI process the group focused on an indicator that influenced patient satisfaction. ⋯ The QI process and methodology were effectively implemented to address a complex problem. The results will serve as a foundation for the new process improvement committee focusing on the unstable angina population.
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We have saved a minimum of $17,064 in personnel salaries of a patient representative (based on minimum wage and no paid benefits) during the past year. Although our liaison program was initially started as a cost-saving measure, the benefits of the program cannot be measured in monetary terms. ⋯ Many of the liaisons were totally unaware of the activities in an emergency department. They now have a greater appreciation for the process of emergency care, and can relate that understanding to patients and families.