Italian Intersociety Recommendations on pain management in the emergency setting (SIAARTI, SIMEU, SIS 118, AISD, SIARED, SICUT, IRC).

Backgraund: Pain is the primary reason for admission to the Emergency Department (ED). However, the management of pain in this setting is often inadequate because of opiophagia, fear of excessive sedation, and fear of compromising an adequate clinical assessment.

Methods: An intersociety consensus conference was held in 2010 on the assessment and treatment of pain in the emergency setting.

Quality in emergency departments: a study on 3,285,440 admissions.

Introduction: A multi-centre study has been conducted, during 2005, by means of a questionnaire posted on the Italian Society of Emergency Medicine (SIMEU) web page. Our intention was to carry out an organisational and functional analysis of Italian Emergency Departments (ED) in order to pick out some macro-indicators of the activities performed. Participation was good, in that 69 ED (3,285,440 admissions to emergency services) responded to the questionnaire.