Articles: emergency-services.
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J Burn Care Rehabil · Mar 1990
Practice Guideline GuidelineHospital and prehospital resources for optimal care of patients with burn injury: guidelines for development and operation of burn centers. American Burn Association.
Each year in the United States burn injuries result in more than 500,000 hospital emergency department visits and approximately 70,000 acute inpatient admissions. Most burn injuries are relatively minor, and patients are discharged following outpatient treatment at the medical facility where they are first seen. Of those patients with injuries serious enough to require hospitalization, about 20,000 are admitted directly or by referral to hospitals with special capabilities in the treatment of burn injury. Hospitals with these service capabilities are normally termed "burn centers." This document defines the system, organizational structure, personnel, program, and physical facilities involved in establishing the eligibility of hospitals with the capability of being identified as burn centers.
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A short questionnaire on the subject of the management of epistaxis was sent to forty accident & emergency departments in two NHS regions. Thirty replies were received (response of 75%). It was found that all departments were involved in the initial management of epistaxis, but the extent of that involvement varied considerably. ⋯ Twenty-seven departments used various forms of nasal packing but, of these, two-thirds did not use any form of local anaesthesia. Twenty-three departments allowed patients to go home with a nasal pack in situ. The results of this survey are discussed and a guideline to the management of epistaxis in an accident & emergency setting is suggested.
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J Public Health Med · Feb 1990
Frequency of emergency department attendances as a predictor of mortality: nine-year follow-up of a population-based cohort.
Heavy users of the services of emergency departments (EDs) have in previous studies been found to have psychological, social, economic and other difficulties besides their more or less acute medical problems. In order to establish whether mortality is associated with high ED use, a nine-year follow-up study was conducted of a 10 per cent population sample (n = 17,000), selected from the catchment area of Huddinge Hospital, Sweden. ED visits were found to predict nine-year mortality in the cohort. ⋯ The three predominant causes of death in the cohort were diseases in the circulatory system, tumours and violent death. Heavy ED users had elevated mortality in all diagnoses, the most important excess mortality being from violent death, comprising suicide, probable suicide and alcohol/drug abuse, with an SMR of 6.3 (95 per cent CI = 6.0-6.7). The excess mortality from these causes of the heavy ED users accounted for more than one-third of their total excess mortality.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)