What resources are used in emergency departments in rural sub-Saharan Africa? A retrospective analysis of patient care in a district-level hospital in Uganda.

Objectives: To determine the most commonly used resources (provider procedural skills, medications, laboratory studies and imaging) needed to care for patients.

Setting: A single emergency department (ED) of a district-level hospital in rural Uganda.

Participants: 26 710 patient visits.

Mortality in Children Under Five Receiving Nonphysician Clinician Emergency Care in Uganda.

Background: A nonphysician clinician (NPC) training program was started in Uganda in 2009. NPC care was initially supervised by a physician and subsequent care was independent. The mortality of children under 5 (U5) was analyzed to evaluate the impact of transitioning NPC care from physician-supervised to independent care.

Mortality related to acute illness and injury in rural Uganda: task shifting to improve outcomes.

Background: Due to the dual critical shortages of acute care and healthcare workers in resource-limited settings, many people suffer or die from conditions that could be easily treated if existing resources were used in a more timely and effective manner. In order to address this preventable morbidity and mortality, a novel emergency midlevel provider training program was developed in rural Uganda. This is the first study that assesses this unique application of a task-shifting model to acute care by evaluating the outcomes of 10,105 patients.

Point-of-care ultrasound education for non-physician clinicians in a resource-limited emergency department.

Objective: To describe the outcomes and curriculum components of an educational programme to train non-physician clinicians working in a rural, Ugandan emergency department in the use of POC ultrasound.

Methods: The use of point-of-care ultrasound was taught to emergency care providers through lectures, bedsides teaching and hands-on practical sessions. Lectures were tailored to care providers' knowledge base and available therapeutic means.

World Health Assembly Resolution 60.22. [corrected].

The World Health Assembly 2007 Resolution 60.22 tasked the global health community to address the lack of emergency care in low- and middle-income countries. Little progress has yet been made in integrating emergency care into most low- and middle-income-country health systems.

Nurse-administered ketamine sedation in an emergency department in rural Uganda.

Study Objective: We determine whether, after a brief training program in procedural sedation, nurses can safely independently administer ketamine sedation in a resource-limited environment.

Methods: This is an observational case series of consecutive sedations performed in an emergency department in rural Uganda at approximately 5,000 feet above sea level. The data were collected prospectively in a quality assurance database.

Alcohol-related hypoglycemia in rural Uganda: socioeconomic and physiologic contrasts.

Hypoglycemia is a rare but important complication seen in patients who present with alcohol intoxication. In a study by Marks and Teale, less than one percent of people with alcohol intoxication who presented to an American emergency department were hypoglycemic [1]. It is even more rare to see an intoxicated patient, who had been eating appropriately prior to or during the intoxication, present in a hypoglycemic coma.

Emergency department presentations of transverse myelitis: two case reports.

Transverse myelitis, a diagnosis that may be made in the emergency department (ED) by emergency physicians, can be difficult to diagnose because of its variable signs and symptoms and its poorly understood pathogenesis. In this article, we recount 2 cases of transverse myelitis to demonstrate its presentation, diagnosis, and management in the ED.