BACKGROUND Emergency departments (EDs) may be the first point at which children who have been subject to abuse or neglect come into contact with professionals who are able to act for their protection. In order to ascertain current procedures for identifying and managing child abuse, we conducted a survey of EDs in England and Northern Ireland. METHODS Questionnaires were sent to the lead prof...

Potential problems with the provision of general anaesthesia in accident and emergency (A&E) departments were investigated by sending consultants in A&E a postal questionnaire asking for their views on the quality of the anaesthetic service available to their department. Of the 129 consultants replying, 31% had problems in obtaining an anaesthetist, 17% thought the first on-call anaesthetist wa...

As emerges from the articles by Drs. Pastor et al1 and Sanchís et al,2 it seems that, fortunately, chest pain units (CPU) have begun to get interesting results from the patient care point of view. Thus, the fact that approximately 80% of low-risk patients with chest pain can be discharged with safety from hospital emergency departments (HED) within 24 hours, following performance of ergometry, ...

Shoulder joint is the most common joint requiring reduction by emergency physicians. Successful reduction is based on the overcoming of resistance of the shoulder muscles. Pain is the most important factor in resistance increase and sedation; analgesia and, in certain cases, intra-articular anesthesia are preferred for reduction. The external rotation (ER) method can provide successful reductio...

Nearly 130 million visits to emergency departments (EDs) occur every year in the United States (1). Whether patients should have gone to the ED in the first place is frequently debated, because the ED is often viewed as an overcrowded, overused, misused, and costly resource. Yet patients rarely present to the ED for unnecessary reasons (2). Judging appropriateness of ED visits often suffers fro...

allaying any residual worries consequent on putting this piece of automation into practice, while the doctor reflects with Mark Twain that there is something fascinating about science as one gets such wholesome returns ofconjectures out of such trifling investment of fact. 11 Himing CR, Aitken JH. Cathode-ray tube x-ray emission standard for video display terminals. 22 Marha K. Electric and mag...

A survey of three London hospitals found that approximately 0.45 patients per thousand new attenders die in the accident and emergency department and that there is evidence of poor management in about 10% of these deaths. The commonest faults were excessive delay before starting appropriate treatment and neglect of the basic principles of emergency medicine. These points need to be emphasized i...

We propose an innovative approach for measuring real-time operational load within emergency departments. Medical informatics, operations researchers, and other decision makers in the health care field have yet to come to an agreement regarding standardized matrices for measuring operational load within emergency departments. As a result, it is difficult to develop methods and approaches for red...

INTRODUCTION Intubation is one of the most important life-saving procedures performed by emergency physicians (EPs). There is variation in practice when different countries are compared. METHODS A written questionnaire on intubation practices was administered to a group of Italian doctors practicing in Tuscany during the examination period of a year-long course in emergency medicine. RESULT...

This article reviews the history and progress of the computerisation of accident and emergency departments in Hong Kong. The Hospital Information System was the first computerisation project to be launched in a public hospital in Hong Kong, when the Princess Margaret Hospital was selected as a pilot site in April 1991. The network infrastructure comprised a central processor that linked to all ...