Injury Prevention

Unexpected Arrest-Related Deaths in America: 12 Months of Open Source Surveillance

Sudden, unexpected arrest-related death (ARD) has been associated with drug abuse, extreme delirium or certain police practices. There is insufficient surveillance and causation data available. We report 12 months of surveillance data using a novel data collection methodology.

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A Descriptive Analysis of 1251 Solid Organ Transplant Visits to the Emergency Department

As solid organ transplants become more common, recipients present more frequently to the emergency department (ED) for care.

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A Statistical Analysis of Santa Barbara Ambulance Response in 2006: Performance Under Load

Ambulance response times in Santa Barbara County for 2006 are analyzed using point process techniques, including kernel intensity estimates and K-functions. Clusters of calls result in significantly higher response times, and this effect is quantified. In particular, calls preceded by other calls within 20 km and within the previous hour are significantly more likely to result in violations. This effect appears to be especially pronounced within semi-rural neighborhoods.

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Incidence of Serious Bacterial Infections in Ex-premature Infants with a Postconceptional Age Less Than 48 Weeks Presenting to a Pediatric Emergency Department

Premature infants are at higher risk of developing serious bacterial infections (SBI). However, the incidence of SBI in ex-premature infants presenting to the emergency department (ED) remains undetermined. The objective of this study is to examine the incidence of SBI in ex-premature infants with a postconceptional age of less than 48 weeks presenting to a pediatric ED.

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Inter-Rater Reliability of Historical Data Collected by Non-Medical Research Assistants and Physicians in Patients with Acute Abdominal Pain

In many academic emergency departments (ED), physicians are asked to record clinical data for research that may be time consuming and distracting from patient care. We hypothesized that non-medical research assistants (RAs) could obtain historical information from patients with acute abdominal pain as accurately as physicians.

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Influence of Assigned Reading on Senior Medical Student Clinical Performance

This Institutional Review Board-approved, prospective, observational study compared the clinical performance of senior medical students in an emergency medicine (EM) clerkship using a clinical behavioral evaluation tool in which one group had mandatory, topic specific readings and the other did not.

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Emergency Department Ultrasound Is not a Sensitive Detector of Solid Organ Injury

To estimate the sensitivity and specificity of emergency department (ED) ultrasound for the detection of solid organ injury following blunt abdominal trauma.

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Ultrasound-Assisted Peripheral Venous Access in Young Children: A Randomized Controlled Trial and Pilot Feasibility Study

Intravenous (IV) access in children treated in the emergency department (ED) is frequently required and often difficult to obtain. While it has been shown that ultrasound can be useful in adults for both central and peripheral venous access, research regarding children has been limited. We sought to determine if the use of a static ultrasound technique could, a) allow clinicians to visualize peripheral veins and b) improve success rates of peripheral venous cannulation in young children in the ED.

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Critical Care

Use of the Trendelenburg Position in the Porcine Model Improves Carotid Flow During Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation

Here we suggest the Trendelenburg position as yet another method of increasing cardiac output and therefore improving the effectiveness of chest compressions. We hypothesized that the use of the Trendelenburg position during CPR would increase cardiac output as measured by carotid blood flow.

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Critical Care

Non-Invasive Method for the Rapid Assessment of Central Venous Pressure: Description and Validation by a Single Examiner

This study describes a means of assessing the external jugular venous pressure (JVP) as an indicator of normal or elevated central venous pressure (CVP).

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Critical Care

The Effect of Single-Bolus Etomidate on Septic Patient Mortality: A Retrospective Review

We sought to compare the in-hospital mortality between septic patients given etomidate and those given alternative induction agents for intubation.

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Critical Care

Delayed Complications of Emergency Airway Management: A Study of 533 Emergency Department Intubations

Airway management is a critical procedure performed frequently in emergency departments (EDs). Previous studies have evaluated the complications associated with this procedure but have focused only on the immediate complications. The purpose of this study is to determine the incidence and nature of delayed complications of tracheal intubation performed in the ED at an academic center where intubations are performed by emergency physicians (EPs).

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Critical Care

Emergent Endotracheal Intubation and Mortality in Traumatic Brain Injury

To determine the relationship between emergent intubation (emergency department and field intubation cases combined) and mortality in patients with traumatic brain injury while controlling for injury severity.

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Comparison of Methanol Exposure Routes Reported to Texas Poison Control Centers

Methanol poisoning by ingestion is well represented in current emergency medicine literature. Much less described, however, is poisoning via intentional inhalation of methanol-containing products such as carburetor cleaner. This study intends to explore the exposure routes and treatment patterns of methanol cases reported to Texas Poison Centers.

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Tinnitus as a Measure of Salicylate Toxicity in the Overdose Setting

To correlate salicylate levels in patients with the subjective complaint of THL, following an acute salicylate overdose.

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Self-Reported Emergency Medicine Residency Applicant Attitudes Towards a Procedural Cadaver Laboratory Curriculum

Residency applicants consider a variety of factors when ranking emergency medicine (EM) programs for their NRMP match list. A human cadaver emergency procedure lab curriculum is uncommon. We hypothesized that the presence this curriculum would positively impact the ranking of an EM residency program.

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Prevalence of Bordetella pertussis and Bordetella parapertussis in Samples Submitted for RSV Screening

First, the prevalence of B. pertussis is less than 2% among patients screened for RSV, and second the prevalence of B. parapertussis is also less than 2% among these patients.

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Health Literacy among Parents of Pediatric Patients

We measured the prevalence of health literacy in parents or guardians of pediatric patients seen in the emergency department (ED).

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Patient Satisfaction and Return to Daily Activities Using Etomidate Procedural Sedation for Orthopedic Injuries

With regard to sedative agents used in procedural sedation and analgesia (PSA), such as etomidate, the focus has been on variables usually related to side effect profile and the success rates of various procedures, with both variables specifically taking place during the patients’ stay in the emergency department (ED). There have been no extensive data on the functional status of patients after they leave the ED following PSA.

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Leukocytosis as a Predictor of Severe Injury in Blunt Trauma

  Author Affiliation Claudia A. Santucci, MD Kern Medical Center, Department of Emergency Medicine Thomas B. Purcell, MD Kern Medical Center, Department of Emergency Medicine Carlo Mejia Kern Medical Center, Department of Emergency Medicine ABSTRACT Introduction: The objective of this study was to determine if the white blood cell count can predict severity of injury […]

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Comparison of the Evaluations of a Case-Based Reasoning Decision Support Tool by Specialist Expert Reviewers with Those of End Users

Decision-support tools (DST) are typically developed by computer engineers for use by clinicians. Prototype testing DSTs may be performed relatively easily by one or two clinical experts. The costly alternative is to test each prototype on a larger number of diverse clinicians, based on the untested assumption that these evaluations would more accurately reflect those of actual end users.

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Under Utilization of local anesthetics in infant lumbar punctures

Lumbar Puncture (LP) is an invasive procedure frequently used to diagnose meningitis among the pediatric population. Neonates and infants have not routinely received local anesthesia prior to LP.

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Validation of the Social Security Death Index (SSDI): An Important Readily-Available Outcomes Database for Researchers

To determine the accuracy of the online Social Security Death Index (SSDI) for determining death outcomes.

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Accuracy of ED Bedside Ultrasound for Identification of gallstones: retrospective analysis of 575 studies

To determine the ability of emergency department (ED) physicians to diagnose cholelithiasis with bedside ultrasound.

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Educational Assessment of Medical Student Rotation in Emergency Ultrasound

Medical student ultrasound education is sparse. In 2002, we began the first medical student rotation in emergency ultrasound.

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A Prospective, Randomized Trial in the Emergency Department of Suggestive Audio-Therapy under Deep Sedation for Smoking Cessation

In a sample of patients undergoing procedural deep sedation in the emergency department (ED), we conducted a prospective, randomized, single-blinded trial of audio-therapy for smoking cessation.

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