Publications by authors named "Herman Morchel"

Background: Subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is a diagnosis that emergency physicians must have a high index of suspicion for. Many common chief complaints such as headache, nausea, altered mental status, and even syncope may alert clinicians to the possibility of a SAH.

Case Presentation: The authors present an unusual case of SAH in a patient presenting with acute dyskinesia and altered mental status, which has seldom been documented as the presenting feature of SAH, as well as the diagnostic pitfalls encountered in assessing this patient.

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The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent surge of patients presented to emergency departments has forever changed the paradigm of delivering emergency care. The highly infectious nature of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus, or COVID-19, mandated strict environmental changes, novel patient care, and flexible strategies to continue to deliver efficient emergency care while maintaining appropriate physical distancing between suspect and non-suspect COVID-19 patients. The engagement of a unique rapidly deployable Mobile Satellite Emergency Department (MSED) with scalable capability from prompt care to resuscitation level allowed the emergency care team to optimize patient care and throughput.

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Objective: To determine if physicians trained in ultrasound interpretation perceive a difference in image quality and usefulness between Extended Focused Assessment with Sonography ultrasound examinations performed at bedside in a hospital vs. by emergency medical technicians minimally trained in medical ultrasound on a moving ambulance and transmitted to the hospital via a novel wireless system. In particular, we sought to demonstrate that useful images could be obtained from patients in less than optimal imaging conditions; that is, while they were in transport.

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Objective: This article describes the innovative use of an automated drug distribution cabinet system for medication supply in a disaster response mobile Emergency Department vehicle. Prior to the use of the automated drug distribution cabinet system described in this article, the mobile hospitals were stocked as needed with drugs in individual boxes and draws. Experience with multiple deployments found this method to be very cumbersome and labor intensive, both in preparation, operational use, and demobilization.

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Electronic health records access during a disaster.

Online J Public Health Inform

March 2014

As has been demonstrated previously, medical care providers that employ an electronic health records (EHR) system provide more appropriate, cost effective care. Those providers are also better positioned than those who rely on paper records to recover if their facility is damaged as a result of severe storms, fires, or other events. The events surrounding Superstorm Sandy in 2012 made it apparent that, with relatively little additional effort and investment, health care providers with EHR systems may be able to use those systems for patient care purposes even during disasters that result in damage to buildings and facilities, widespread power outages, or both.

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There is not sufficient access to medical care or medical expertise in many parts of the world. An innovative telemedicine system has been developed to provide expert medical guidance to field caregivers [who have less medical expertise but can reach the patient population in need]. Real-time ultrasound video images have been securely transmitted from the Dominican Republic to Hackensack University Medical Center, Hackensack NJ (HackensackUMC), while the expert physician at HackensackUMC maintained direct voice communication with the field caregiver.

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Background: Despite the use of e-FAST in management of patients with abdominal trauma, its utility in prehospital setting is not widely adopted. The goal of this study is to develop a novel portable telesonography (TS) system and evaluate the comparability of the quality of images obtained via this system among healthy volunteers who undergo e-FAST abdominal examination in a moving ambulance and at the ED. We hypothesize that: (1) real-time ultrasound images of acute trauma patients in the pre-hospital setting can be obtained and transmitted to the ED via the novel TS system; and (2) Ultrasound images transmitted to the hospital from the real-time TS system will be comparable in quality to those obtained in the ED.

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