Articles: emergency-services.
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Annals of family medicine · Nov 2024
Development of an Emergency Department Surge Plan Based on the NEDOCS score.
Context: Emergency Department (ED) overcrowding is a significant problem worldwide. Many factors contribute to ED overcrowding, including staffing shortages, diagnostic testing delays, and inadequate inpatient beds to meet the demand. ED overcrowding results in patient safety issues like higher inpatient mortality and other negative impacts, such as an increased length of stay (LOS) and an increased trend of leaving the ED before undergoing an evaluation and treatment. ⋯ Conclusions: Our study suggests that implementing an ED adult surge plan can significantly improve ED hold hours and NEDOCS scores. However, it is important to note that other important ED throughput metrics (mean ED LOS, left without seen rate, mean door-to-doctor exam time) did not significantly improve. Further research may be necessary to understand the factors contributing to these outcomes and identify additional interventions that may improve ED throughput.
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Ultrasound guidance is fundamental to procedural safety and success. For many emergency department (ED) procedures, the use of ultrasound improves first-pass success rate, time-to-completion, and complication rate when compared with traditional landmark-based techniques. Once learned, the general principles of ultrasound guidance may be adapted across a broad range of bedside procedures.
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Multicenter Study
Safety and efficiency of implementation of high-sensitivity troponin T in the assessment of emergency department patients with cardiac chest pain.
For emergency department (ED) patients with cardiac chest pain, introduction of high-sensitivity troponin (hsTnT) pathways has been associated with reductions in length of stay of less than 1 h. ⋯ Implementation of hsTnT for evaluation of ED chest pain patients was safe and associated with a 3-h decrease in length of stay.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Feasibility of adolescent contraceptive care in the pediatric emergency department: A pilot randomized controlled trial.
This study assessed feasibility constructs of adolescent contraceptive care in the pediatric emergency department (PED), including contraception initiation. ⋯ We are among the first to report on PED-based adolescent contraception initiation to prevent unintended pregnancy. Adolescents and clinicians reported that contraceptive care was feasible. Initiation was common and medications were largely appropriate and tolerated. Future efforts should explore integrating contraceptive care into routine PED care.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Proactive care management of AI-identified at-risk patients decreases preventable admissions.
We assessed whether proactive care management for artificial intelligence (AI)-identified at-risk patients reduced preventable emergency department (ED) visits and hospital admissions (HAs). ⋯ A care management intervention targeting AI-identified at-risk patients was followed by a onetime, significant, sizable reduction in preventable HA rates. Further exploration is needed to assess the potential of integrating AI and care management in preventing acute hospital encounters.