OBJECTIVE To identify an optimal imaging strategy for the accurate detection of urgent conditions in patients with acute abdominal pain. DESIGN Fully paired multicentre diagnostic accuracy study with prospective data collection. SETTING Emergency departments of two university hospitals and four large teaching hospitals in the Netherlands. PARTICIPANTS 1021 patients with non-traumatic abdo...

BACKGROUND Urgent, unplanned hospital readmissions are increasingly being used to gauge the quality of care. We reviewed urgent readmissions to determine which were potentially avoidable and compared rates of all-cause and avoidable readmissions. METHODS In a multicentre, prospective cohort study, we reviewed all urgent readmissions that occurred within six months among patients discharged to...

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES Prosthetic valve endocarditis is associated with high morbidity and mortality, particularly when urgent surgery is needed. The identification of factors that predict a poor prognosis is the first step in improving outcomes. The study objectives were to characterize patients with prosthetic valve endocarditis who need urgent surgery and to identify factors that predic...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate whether nurse-directed diabetes care reduced preventable diabetes-related urgent care/emergency room visits and hospitalizations in a minority population. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Diabetic patients who receive care in a county public health clinic were randomly selected for a Diabetes Managed Care Program (DMCP) in which a specially trained nurse followed detailed tre...

Referral and flow management is an important part of outpatient care; some patients require to be seen earlier than the next available appointment because of the nature of their presentation. We did not have a clear pathway for urgent patients being referred to our pediatric neurology service. When we reviewed this process in our Quality Improvement meeting we identified wide variation in the l...

The emerging class of urgent geoscience workflows are capable of quickly allocating computational resources for time critical tasks. To date, no urgent computing capabilities for data services exists. Since urgent geoscience and Earth science workflows are typically data intensive, urgent data services are necessary so that these urgent workflows do not bottleneck on inappropriately managed or ...

BACKGROUND In 2010, a new telephone service, NHS 111, was piloted to improve access to urgent care in England. A unique feature is the use of non-clinical call takers who triage calls with computerized decision support and have access to clinical advisors when necessary. Aim. To explore users' acceptability of NHS 111. DESIGN Cross-sectional postal survey. SETTING Four pilot sites in Englan...