BACKGROUND Patients under palliative care and in hospital-at-home services are frequently transferred to emergency departments. We set out to identify the reasons for these presentations to determine the proportion that might be avoidable. METHODS We conducted a retrospective study by assessment of patient files. We studied admissions to four emergency departments in an area of France (Puy-de...

A total of 37,152 patients attended the Accident & Emergency (A&E) Department of Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (HUKM) from 1st January to 31st December 1998. Attendance during early hours (midnight to 0659 hrs.) constituted only 10.4% (3853 cases) whereas that for three other time periods of 0700-1159 hrs., 1200-1759 hrs., and 1800-2359 hrs. was 29.4% (10,927 cases), 30.8% (11,448 cas...

OBJECTIVES Suspected seizures are a common reason for emergency calls to ambulance services. Prehospital management of these patients is an important element of good quality care. The aim of this study, conducted in a regional ambulance service in the UK, was to quantify the number of emergency telephone calls for suspected seizures in adults, the associated costs, and to describe the patients'...

BACKGROUND Increasing women's access to and use of facilities for childbirth is a critical national strategy to improve maternal health outcomes in Ethiopia; however coverage alone is not enough as the quality of emergency obstetric services affects maternal mortality and morbidity. Addis Ababa has a much higher proportion of facility-based births (82%) than the national average (11%), but time...

Objective:  Patient satisfaction is one of the most important indicators for measuring the quality of emergency services and health care. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the patients’ satisfaction in the emergency department (ED)...

OBJECTIVE To determine the prognosis of patients with ventricular fibrillation in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in Hong Kong and examine its relationship with the other links in the chain of survival. DESIGN Prospective descriptive study. SETTING Three accident and emergency departments, Hong Kong. PARTICIPANTS Patients older than 18 years with non-traumatic out-of-hospital cardiac arres...

OBJECTIVE To determine the quality and diagnostic accuracy of in-hospital adult clinical emergency calls. DESIGN Prospective observational study. SETTING Three National Health Service acute hospitals in England. PARTICIPANTS Adult patients sustaining an in-hospital cardiac arrest (CA) or medical emergency (ME) which required activation of the hospital resuscitation team between 1 December...

Objective: Emergency department is the most important part of a hospital and it seems that 24-hour presence of emergency medicine specialist can be effective in improving the performance of this ward. Therefore, the present study was performed with the aim of studying the effect of 24-hour presence of emergency medicine specialists in the emergency department of Shahid Bahonar ...

Emergency Medicine in Jamaica has evolved rapidly over the past 20 years and has gained recognition as a specialty. A residency training programme has been established, trademark life support courses are now available, moves to develop areas of sub-specialization have begun and an emergency medicine association has been formed. There has been an increase in the diagnostic modalities in the main...

Introduction Pre-hospital emergency anaesthesia (PHEA) is a high-risk activity. Recent guidelines suggest that providers consider using pre-procedure checklists [1]. We applied the principles of checklist development and design to our PHEA practice, developed a pre-anaesthetic checklist and introduced it to our service. Methods An expert group of physicians and paramedics within our service con...