Articles: emergency-services.
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The study was conducted to ascertain the time it takes an ambulance team to reach a patient and transport the patient to an emergency department after a 995 call. One hundred and sixty-two cases brought to two emergency departments (Singapore General Hospital and Tan Tock Seng Hospital) between 11 March 1992 and 16 March 1992 were studied. The information was obtained from ambulance officers of the Singapore Civil Defence Force. ⋯ With the present level of staff in Singapore, basic life support care starts 11.40 minutes and advanced life support care 30.50 minutes after a 995 call. These times are unacceptable if it involves a cardiac arrest or a trauma patient. Factors which cause these long time intervals include traffic congestion, inadequate public education, location of patient (whether on ground level or highrise) and distance from the emergency departments.
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To determine whether emergency department staff met the needs of the next of kin and close friends ("survivors") of patients dying in an emergency department and to assess the effectiveness of a program to improve care of survivors. ⋯ The grievous experience of learning that a loved one has suddenly and unexpectedly died in the emergency department can be alleviated somewhat by a structured, multidisciplinary approach combined with staff sensitization and education.
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Acute asthma is a very common medical emergency. Thus, a variety of measures are currently used to assess severity; most are logical and seem reasonably effective but have never been scientifically tested in a comprehensive manner. Additionally, simple brief measures are needed for greater specificity in describing variables and in assessing different aspects of asthma. ⋯ Finally, early response to treatment was the most important predictor of the patient outcome (r = 0.48, p < 0.00). In summary, the results of this study support the hypothesis that most of the subjective and objective measures utilized in the assessment of patients with acute adult asthma represent separate and nonoverlapping dimensions and provided a useful summary of acute asthma. Early response to treatment in combination with measures of the four identified factors could be included in other acute adult asthma research protocols promoting greater comparable among studies.
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Emergency physicians are overwhelmed by the load of medical record documentation in the emergency department. This article reviews the important reasons for better documentation and today's increasing regulatory requirements in medical record documentation.