Articles: emergency-services.
-
To determine how often emergency department physicians prescribe medications that can adversely interact with other medications that their patients are already taking, which patients are at highest risk for potential adverse reactions, and which medications most frequently lead to adverse interactions. ⋯ In the emergency departments studied, a medication history was recorded on every patient and was available to physicians, but physicians did not routinely screen for potential drug interactions. Further safeguards are needed to protect patients from receiving medications that could produce adverse interactions.
-
A number of reports have suggested that the incidence of deliberate self-harm has been declining since the late 1970s. Most of these findings have emerged from studies of hospital inpatients, but a large proportion of patients are sent home directly from Accident and Emergency Departments. ⋯ It is argued that age-specific trends, based on inpatient statistics, could be distorted by Accident and Emergency discharges. It is recommended that future epidemiological studies of deliberate self-harm include patients who progress no further than the Accident and Emergency Department.
-
A retrospective audit of 17,028 emergency charts at USAF Medical Center, Scott was performed over two time periods to compare patient waiting times and selected quality assurance parameters with two methods of physician staffing. Phase 1 consisted of 4 months when the Emergency Department (ED) was manned with five physicians assigned only to that department. Non-departmental physicians supplemented the full-time staff. ⋯ The time required to be seen by a physician decreased from an average of 25.6 minutes per patient in phase 1 to 13.7 minutes per patient in phase 2. Time to disposition also decreased from 71.9 minutes per patient in phase 1 to 59.5 minutes per patient in phase 2. In the second phase the number of "positive" x-ray findings increased, while the number of incomplete charts and patients who left without being seen by a physician diminished.
-
When planning the average number of bed occupancy days per year at a hospital providing emergency hospitalization one should take into account the demurrage of reserve beds which are needed for urgent hospitalization of patients. The influence of emergency demurrage of reserve beds on occupancy rate is not determined by the absolute number of these beds and their share in the structure of hospital bed fund. The number of reserve beds depends on the number of emergency patients hospitalized and the average length of hospital stay.
-
Connecticut medicine · Jan 1990
Connecticut emergency department physicians survey. Implications for graduate medical education.
A survey conducted in mid-1989 of 36 Connecticut hospital emergency departments sought to determine the nature of physician staffing and the volume and the acuteness of patient problems. Overall, only 31% of emergency department staffing is provided by board certified emergency physicians in the state of Connecticut. In addition to emphasizing the lack of board certified emergency physicians available in the state, this survey also indicated a relative deficiency in emergency department physician staffing in general with approximately 20% of all positions currently unfilled statewide. The implications of these findings for graduate medical education in Connecticut are discussed.