Emergency Medicine Commons^™

A Novel Approach To Addressing An Unintended Consequence Of Direct To Room: The Delay Of Initial Vital Signs., J. Basile, E. Youssef, B. Cambria, J. Chacko, K. Treval, B. Hahn, B. Ardolic

Journal Articles

Introduction: The concept of "direct to room" (DTR) and "immediate bedding" has been described in the literature as a mechanism to improve front-end, emergency department (ED) processing. The process allows for an expedited clinician-patient encounter. An unintended consequence of DTR was a time delay in obtaining the initial set of vital signs upon patient arrival.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study was conducted at a single, academic, tertiary-care facility with an annual census of 94,000 patient visits. Inclusion criteria were all patients who entered the ED from 11/1/15 to 5/1/16 and between the hours of 7 am to 11 pm. During …

Pain Perception In Latino Vs. Caucasian And Male Vs. Female Patients: Is There Really A Difference?, Molly Aufiero, Holly Stankewicz, Shaila Quazi, Jeanne Jacoby, Jill Stoltzfus

Jefferson Health - Northeast Papers (formerly Aria Health Papers)

INTRODUCTION: Pain is a common emergency department (ED) complaint. It is important to understand the differences in pain perception among different ethnic and demographic populations.

METHODS: We applied a standardized painful stimulus to Caucasian and Latino adult patients to determine whether the level of pain reported differed depending on ethnicity (N=100; 50 Caucasian [C], 50 Latino [L] patients) and gender (N=100; 59 female, 41 male). Patients had an initial pain score of 0 or 1. A blood pressure cuff was inflated 20 mm HG above the patient's systolic blood pressure and held for three minutes. Pain scores, using both a …

Clinician-Performed Bedside Ultrasound In Improving Diagnostic Accuracy In Patients Presenting To The Ed With Acute Dyspnea., Dimitrios Papanagnou, Michael Secko, John Gullett, Michael Stone, Shahriar Zehtabchi

Department of Emergency Medicine Faculty Papers

INTRODUCTION: Diagnosing acute dyspnea is a critical action performed by emergency physicians (EP). It has been shown that ultrasound (US) can be incorporated into the work-up of the dyspneic patient; but there is little data demonstrating its effect on decision-making. We sought to examine the impact of a bedside, clinician-performed cardiopulmonary US protocol on the clinical impression of EPs evaluating dyspneic patients, and to measure the change in physician confidence with the leading diagnosis before and after US.

METHODS: We conducted a prospective observational study of EPs treating adult patients with undifferentiated dyspnea in an urban academic center, excluding those …

Associations Of Emergency Department Length Of Stay With Publicly Reported Quality-Of-Care Measures., Anna Marie Chang, Amber Lin, Rongwei Fu, K. John Mcconnell, Benjamin Sun

Department of Emergency Medicine Faculty Papers

OBJECTIVE: The Institute of Medicine identified emergency department (ED) crowding as a critical threat to patient safety. We assess the association between changes in publicly reported ED length of stay (LOS) and changes in quality-of-care measures in a national cohort of hospitals.

METHODS: Longitudinal analysis of 2012 and 2013 data from the American Hospital Association (AHA) Survey, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Cost Reports, and CMS Hospital Compare. We included hospitals reporting Hospital Compare timeliness measure of LOS for admitted patients. We used AHA and CMS data to incorporate hospital predictors of interest. We used the method of …

Design And Challenges Of A Randomized Clinical Trial Of Medical Expulsive Therapy (Tamsulosin) For Urolithiasis In The Emergency Department., Pamela K. Burrows, Judd E. Hollander, Allan B. Wolfson, Michael C. Kurz, Lorna Richards, Sara Difiore, Phillip Watts, Nivedita Patkar, Jeremy Brown, Stephen Jackman, Ziya Kirkali, John W. Kusek, Chloe Michel, Andrew C. Meltzer

Department of Emergency Medicine Faculty Papers

Urolithiasis or urinary stone disease has been estimated to affect about 1 in 11 Americans. Patients with urinary stone disease commonly present to the emergency department for management of their acute pain. In addition to providing analgesia, administration of drug (medical expulsive therapy) is often prescribed to assist passage of the urinary stone. In this methodology paper, we describe the design of a prospective, multi-center, randomized, double-blind placebo controlled clinical trial of the alpha-adrenergic blocker, tamsulosin, to evaluate its effectiveness as medical expulsive therapy. In addition, we describe the unique challenges of conducting a trial of this type within the …

The 2016 Academic Emergency Medicine Consensus Conference, "Shared Decision Making In The Emergency Department: Development Of A Policy-Relevant Patient-Centered Research Agenda" Diagnostic Testing Breakout Session Report., Tyler W. Barrett, Kristin L. Rising, M. Fernanda Bellolio, M. Kennedy Hall, Aaron Brody, Kenneth W. Dodd, Mira Grieser, Phillip D. Levy, Ali S. Raja, Wesley H. Self, Gail Weingarten, Erik P. Hess, Judd Hollander

Department of Emergency Medicine Faculty Papers

Diagnostic testing is an integral component of patient evaluation in the emergency department (ED). Emergency clinicians frequently use diagnostic testing to more confidently exclude "worst-case" diagnoses rather than to determine the most likely etiology for a presenting complaint. Increased utilization of diagnostic testing has not been associated with reductions in disease-related mortality but has led to increased overall healthcare costs and other unintended consequences (e.g., incidental findings requiring further workup, unnecessary exposure to ionizing radiation or potentially nephrotoxic contrast). Shared decision making (SDM) presents an opportunity for clinicians to discuss the benefits and harms associated with diagnostic testing with patients …

Practice Characteristics Of Emergency Department Extracorporeal Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (Ecpr) Programs In The United States: The Current State Of The Art Of Emergency Department Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (Ed Ecmo)., Joseph E. Tonna, Nicholas J. Johnson, John Greenwood, David F. Gaieski, Zachary Shinar, Joseph M. Bellezo, Lance Becker, Atman P. Shah, Scott T. Youngquist, Michael P. Mallin, James Franklin Fair, Kyle J. Gunnerson, Cindy Weng, Stephen Mckellar

Department of Emergency Medicine Faculty Papers

PURPOSE: To characterize the current scope and practices of centers performing extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (eCPR) on the undifferentiated patient with cardiac arrest in the emergency department.

METHODS: We contacted all US centers in January 2016 that had submitted adult eCPR cases to the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) registry and surveyed them, querying for programs that had performed eCPR in the Emergency Department (ED ECMO). Our objective was to characterize the following domains of ED ECMO practice: program characteristics, patient selection, devices and techniques, and personnel.

RESULTS: Among 99 centers queried, 70 responded. Among these, 36 centers performed ED ECMO. …

Recurrent Violent Injury: Magnitude, Risk Factors, And Opportunities For Intervention From A Statewide Analysis., Elinore Kaufman, Kristin L. Rising, Md, Ms, Douglas J. Wiebe, David J. Ebler, Marie L. Crandall, M. Kit Delgado

Department of Emergency Medicine Faculty Papers

INTRODUCTION: Although preventing recurrent violent injury is an important component of a public health approach to interpersonal violence and a common focus of violence intervention programs, the true incidence of recurrent violent injury is unknown. Prior studies have reported recurrence rates from 0.8% to 44%, and risk factors for recurrence are not well established.

METHODS: We used a statewide, all-payer database to perform a retrospective cohort study of emergency department visits for injury due to interpersonal violence in Florida, following up patients injured in 2010 for recurrence through 2012. We assessed risk factors for recurrence with multivariable logistic regression and …

Retrospective Analysis Of Youth Evaluated For Suicide Attempt Or Suicidal Ideation In An Emergency Room Setting, Julie Hagedorn, Hatim A. Omar

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

Suicide is the third leading cause of death in adolescents and a major contributor to morbidity in this age group. The objective of this study was to look at the demographics, major stressors and factors leading to attempting suicide as well as the methods of attempted suicide in adolescents admitted to two hospitals in a medium size city. Medical records were reviewed of adolescents admitted to two area hospitals for attempted suicide between 7/1/97-12/31/99. Coroner's data on completed suicide were also reviewed. In the study period a total of 287 persons aged 21 years or under were admitted for attempted …