Articles: emergency-services.
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To compare the ratio of hospital admissions for asthma to total hospital admissions and to admissions for non-asthma respiratory conditions, over an 11-year period, to see if there has been a true increase in admissions for asthma or merely a change in diagnostic labelling. A similar comparison was made for presentations with asthma and non-asthma respiratory conditions to the accident and emergency department. ⋯ These results suggest that there has been a major increase in the number of cases of asthma being treated at this hospital and that this is a true increase, perhaps representing increased severity, rather than a change in diagnostic labelling.
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Scand J Prim Health Care · Sep 1993
Ethnicity as a risk factor for consultations in primary health care and out-patient care.
To determine the influence of ethnicity, defined as foreign-born people, on consultation rates, admissions and prescriptions in out-patient care and primary health care. ⋯ There were important differences in consultations between Swedes and foreign-born people. It seems important to study these differences further to find out if they were due to morbidity or cultural differences in order to be able to meet the demands and needs of different ethnic groups.
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'Nurse Triage' refers to the formal process of early assessment of patients attending an accident and emergency (A&E) department by a trained nurse, to ensure that they receive appropriate attention, in a suitable location, with the requisite degree of urgency. The benefits claimed for nurse triage include better patient outcomes, through clinical management reaching those in greatest need of it first. ⋯ The results brought forth criticism from all quarters. In this paper the points made by the critics are considered, and an attempt to answer them is made.
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Gen Hosp Psychiatry · Sep 1993
Case ReportsCrisis hospitalization on a psychiatric emergency service.
The availability of short-stay beds for brief admissions to a Psychiatric Emergency Service (PES) is a model that meets a variety of patient and system needs, allowing time to develop alternatives to hospitalization or gain diagnostic clarity, serving a respite function, providing a hospital setting that does not gratify dependency needs, and relieving inpatient census pressures. An eight-bed service for brief inpatient stays of up to 3 days was developed on a PES which serves a large nine-country catchment area in northeastern New York State. Admissions to this unit would otherwise have gone to a medical school teaching hospital psychiatric unit or a state psychiatric center. ⋯ The PD patients had a strong association with suicidality and some association with substance abuse, whereas the schizophrenics had more psychiatric symptomatology. PD patients were more likely to be discharged, leading us to propose a rationale for why this group may be uniquely suited to this approach. The study was replicated after a year on another sample of 51 consecutive admissions, confirming the earlier results and providing a 1-year follow-up on the program.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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To analyze the effects of war on the civilian population through patterns of medical service consumption in a pediatric emergency room. ⋯ Visits during the ware were more related to emergency situations with fewer visits of the walk-in clinic type.