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A recent study in the Annals of Emergency Medicine finds that patients with traumatic brain injuries who are transported by medical helicopters have higher chances of survival and better recoveries than ground-transported patients.
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Joe DiMaggio Childrens Hospital in Hollywood, FL, improved patient satisfaction from the 81st percentile in March 2005 to the 99th percentile in June 2005, and it has remained at that level. At newly opened Memorial Hospital in Miramar, FL, satisfaction rates rose from 85% to 99% in one quarter.
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An accelerated triage process developed by the ED staff at University of California San Diego (UCSD) Medical Center has reduced the frequency of patients who left without being seen by a physician by almost 50% from about 8% to 4%.
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Many stories are emerging from the EDs and field hospitals responding to patient needs following Hurricane Katrina, but few have been as moving as the e-mail by Hemant H. Vankawala, MD, an emergency physician with Questcare partners in Dallas, Denton (TX) Regional Medical Center, and the downtown Dallas Baylor University Medical Center, sent to several of his colleagues.
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Hypothermia causes 700-800 deaths per year in the United States alone. Half of those who die are older than 65 years. Many patients are hypothermic when they arrive in the emergency department (ED), but hypothermia may result from or be aggravated by failing to protect the patient from heat loss, administering room temperature or chilled IV fluids or blood, or using drugs that suppress shivering.
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Bacterial resistance to antibiotic treatment has concerned the medical community since the introduction of the first antibiotics in the 1920s. Development of new anti-infective agents has been precipitated by increasing resistance to older agents and classes of agents.
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Ultrasound utilizes frequencies well above the range of human hearing to penetrate and visualize structures in the body. While human hearing is generally in the range of 20-20,000 Hz (cycles/second), diagnostic ultrasound is typically in the range of 2-12 mega-hertz (MHz), or 2-12 million cycles per second.
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ACE Inhibitors or ARBs for Prediabetics?; Xigris is Approved for Severe Sepsis; ACE Inhibitors Inhibiting Aortic Valve Stenosis?; FDA Actions
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In making changes to address new accreditation standards on patient flow (LD.3.11), and surge capacity (IC.6.10), one hospital has reduced its average throughput in the ED from 3.2 hours to 2.3 hours.