Impact of Hurricane Sandy on hospital emergency and dialysis services: a retrospective survey.

Objective: Hurricane Sandy forced closures of many free-standing dialysis centers in New York City in 2012. Hemodialysis (HD) patients therefore sought dialysis treatments from nearby hospitals. The surge capacity of hospital dialysis services was the rate-limiting step for streamlining the emergency department flow of HD patients.

Waterworks, a full-scale chemical exposure exercise: interrogating pediatric critical care surge capacity in an inner-city tertiary care medical center.

Introduction: Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) resources are overwhelmed in disaster as the need to accommodate influx of critically-ill children is increased. A full-scale chlorine overexposure exercise was conducted by the New York Institute for All Hazard Preparedness (NYIAHP) to assess the appropriateness of response of Kings County Hospital Center's (KCHC's) PICU surge plan to an influx of critically-ill children. The primary endpoint that was assessed was the ability of the institution to follow the PICU surge plan, while secondary endpoints include the ability to provide appropriate medical management.

Clinical characteristics of aortic aneurysm and dissection as a cause of sudden death in outpatients.

Objective: To describe characteristics of nonhospitalized patients experiencing sudden death from aortic causes and compare with characteristics of patients experiencing nontraumatic, unexpected, outpatient death from other causes.

Methods: Retrospective case-control analysis of patients aged 18 to 65 years with nontraumatic, unexpected, outpatient cardiac arrest, emergency department (ED) resuscitation attempts, and autopsy-determined cause of death. Demographics, prodromal symptoms, and arrest characteristics were examined, and univariate comparisons between patients with aortic and those with nonaortic causes of death were performed.