Patients Refusing Prehospital Transport Are Increasingly Likely to Be Geriatric

Patients Refusing Prehospital Transport Are Increasingly Likely to Be Geriatric

Objective. Elderly patients are becoming an increasingly larger proportion of our population, and there is a paucity of data regarding the epidemiology of geriatric patients refusing transport. Treatment refusal rates range from 5% to 15% in many studies. This study sought to test the hypothesis that geriatric patients constituted an increasing proportion of those persons refusing prehospital t...

Refusing to be suppressed

On page 737, Fahlén et al. show that colitis-inducing effector T cells that cannot respond to the suppressive cytokine TGFrefuse to be controlled by regulatory T (T reg) cells. Naturally occurring T reg cells suppress the activity of effector CD4 T cells and are essential for the prevention of autoimmune disease and chronic inflammation. TGFappears to be required for T reg cell activity, but de...

Chest Pain Patients at Veterans Hospitals Are Increasingly More Likely to Be Observed Than Admitted for Short Stays

Observation stays are an outpatient service used to diagnose and treat patients for extended periods of time while a decision is made regarding inpatient admission or discharge. Although the use of observation stays is increasing, little is known about which patients are observed and which are admitted for similar periods of time as inpatients. The aim was to identify patient characteristics as...

Food Taxes: How Likely Are Likely Effects?

Are they really refusing to travel? A qualitative study of prehospital records

BACKGROUND Refusal by the patient to travel after calling an emergency ambulance may lead to a preventable waste of scarce resources if it can be shown that an alternative more appropriate response could be employed. A greater understanding is required of the reasons behind 'refusal to travel' (RTT) in order to find appropriate solutions to address this issue. We sought to investigate the reaso...