Due to a miscommunication during the process of transferring this manuscript from our editorial team to Production, the Members of the American College of Emergency Physicians Clinical Policies Committee (Oversight Committee) were not properly indexed in PubMed. This has now been corrected online. The publisher would like to apologize for any inconvenience caused.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis clinical policy from the American College of Emergency Physicians is an update of the 2004 clinical policy on the critical issues in the evaluation of adult patients presenting to the emergency department with acute blunt abdominal trauma. A writing subcommittee reviewed the literature as part of the process to develop evidence-based recommendations to address 4 key critical questions: (1) In a hemodynamically unstable patient with blunt abdominal trauma, is ultrasound the diagnostic modality of choice? (2) Does oral contrast improve the diagnostic performance of computed tomography (CT) in blunt abdominal trauma? (3) In a clinically stable patient with isolated blunt abdominal trauma, is it safe to discharge the patient after a negative abdominal CT scan result? (4) In patients with isolated blunt abdominal trauma, are there clinical predictors that allow the clinician to identify patients at low risk for adverse events who do not need an abdominal CT? Evidence was graded and recommendations were based on the available data in the medical literature related to the specific clinical question.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis clinical policy from the American College of Emergency Physicians focuses on critical issues concerning the management of adult patients presenting to the emergency department (ED)with community-acquired pneumonia. It is an update of the 2001 clinical policy for the management and risk stratification of adult patients presenting to the ED with community-acquired pneumonia. A subcommittee reviewed the current literature to derive evidence-based recommendations to help answer the following questions: (1) Are routine blood cultures indicated in patients admitted with community-acquired pneumonia? (2) In adult patients with community-acquired pneumonia without severe sepsis, is there a benefit in mortality or morbidity from the administration of antibiotics within aspecific time course? The evidence was graded and recommendations were given based on the strength of evidence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF