OBJECTIVES Emergency department (ED) crowding is a growing problem across the world. Hospitals need to identify the situation using emergency department crowding scoring systems and to produce appropriate solutions. METHODS A new program (Electronic Blockage System, EBS) was written supplementary to the Hospital Information System. It was planned that the number of empty beds in the hospital ...

Data on prognosis and predictors of overall survival in advanced lung cancer patients diagnosed following emergency admission (DFEA) are currently lacking. We retrospectively analysed data from 771 patients with advanced nonsmall cell lung cancer between April 2004 and April 2012. Of the 771 patients, 103 (13%) were DFEA. DFEA was not an independent predictor of overall survival by multivariate...

This study examined whether Winnipeg hospitals experience predictable "high-volume periods" in order to determine whether hospital overcrowding might be anticipated and, therefore, avoided. We found that high-volume periods among medical patients occurred during all but one year between 1987 and 1998. Most high-volume periods occurred during influenza seasons. Preventing such recurrent bed pres...

The rate of patients who visit emergency departments (EDs) but leave before being evaluated and treated is an important indicator of ED performance. This study examines patient- and hospital-level characteristics that may increase the risk of patients leaving EDs before being seen. The data are from the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System, an administrative database, and represent 4.3 mil...

BACKGROUND There has been no previous study into the state of emergency medicine in Azerbaijan. As a legacy of the Soviet Semashko system, the "specialty" model of emergency medicine and integrated emergency departments do not exist here. Instead, pre-hospital emergency care is delivered by ambulance physicians and in-hospital care by individual departments, often in specialty hospitals. Emerge...

Background There is increasing pressure on emergency services within the NHS requiring efficient, rapid assessment and management of patients. A subsequent reduction in hospital admissions reduces overall costs with an aim to improve quality of care. At the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital we run a one stop emergency surgical clinic. With strict criteria for admission to this clinic we have establishe...

OBJECTIVE To determine the validity of alpha-1-acid glycoprotein as a novel biomarker for mortality in patients with severe sepsis. METHODS We prospectively included patients with severe sepsis or septic shock at the emergency department at a single tertiary referral teaching hospital. All of the patients were enrolled within the first 24 hours of emergency department admission, and clinical ...

Introduction The mobile emergency care unit (MECU) in Copenhagen visits emergency patients in an urban setting and is manned by an experienced anesthesiologist and a specially trained fireman. The function of the MECU is to perform emergency treatment and evaluate the need for further treatment in a hospital. The aim of this study was to assess predictive measures of subsequent hospital admissi...

Variability in hospital occupancy negatively impacts the cost and quality of patient care delivery through increased emergency department (ED) congestion, emergency blockages and diversions, elective cancelations, backlogs in ancillary services, overstaffing, and understaffing. Controlling inpatient admissions can effectively reduce variability in hospital occupancy to mitigate these problems. ...

INTRODUCTION The Full Outline of Unresponsiveness (FOUR) score was developed to compensate for the limitations of Glasgow coma score (GCS) in recent years. This study aimed to assess the predictive value of GCS and FOUR score on the outcome of multiple trauma patients admitted to the emergency department. PATIENTS AND METHODS The present prospective cross-sectional study was conducted on mult...