Physician Experiences With Implementing a Virtual Observation Unit in Emergency Medicine.

Study Objective: Physician experiences with new care models like the virtual observation unit in emergency departments (EDs) can offer important insights. Virtual observation unit leverages telehealth, remote monitoring, and mobile integrated health to enable home-based ED-level care. We explored physicians' experience with delivering care in the virtual observation unit and perceived effect of this new model.

Fewer emergency department alarms is associated with reduced use of medications for acute agitation.

Background And Objectives: Patient monitoring systems provide critical information but often produce loud, frequent alarms that worsen patient agitation and stress. This may increase the use of physical and chemical restraints with implications for patient morbidity and autonomy. This study analyzes how augmenting alarm thresholds affects the proportion of alarm-free time and the frequency of medications administered to treat acute agitation.

Patient Perceptions of Emergency Department Observation Care at Home.

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Race and Ethnicity and Primary Language in Emergency Department Triage.

Importance: Emergency department (ED) triage substantially affects how long patients wait for care but triage scoring relies on few objective criteria. Prior studies suggest that Black and Hispanic patients receive unequal triage scores, paralleled by disparities in the depth of physician evaluations.

Objectives: To examine whether racial disparities in triage scores and physician evaluations are present across a multicenter network of academic and community hospitals and evaluate whether patients who do not speak English face similar disparities.

Emergency Department Evaluation of the Adult Psychiatric Patient.

Many patients with acute behavioral or mental health emergencies use the emergency department for their care. Psychiatric patients have a higher incidence of chronic medical conditions and are at greater risk for injury than the general population. Patients with acute behavioral emergencies may stress already overcrowded emergency departments.

Diagnosis of Acute Ischemic Stoke.

Acute ischemic stroke is a challenging and time-sensitive diagnosis. Diagnosis begins with rapid detection of acute stroke symptoms by the patient, their family or caregivers, or bystanders. If acute stroke is suspected, EMS providers should be called for rapid assessment.

Neurologic Emergencies in the Elderly.

Neurologic diseases are a major cause of death and disability in elderly patients. Due to the physiologic changes and increased comorbidities that occur as people age, neurologic diseases are more common in geriatric patients and a major cause of death and disability in this population. This article discusses the elderly patient presenting to the emergency department with acute ischemic stroke, transient ischemic attack, intracerebral hemorrhage, subarachnoid hemorrhage, chronic subdural hematoma, traumatic brain injury, seizures, and central nervous system infections.

Neuroimaging in acute stroke.

This article reviews the various imaging modalities available for the evaluation of patients presenting with a potential stroke syndrome, specifically acute ischemic stroke, intracerebral hemorrhage, and subarachnoid hemorrhage. It reviews the various computed tomography (CT) modalities, including noncontrast brain CT (NCCT), CT angiography, and CT perfusion. It discusses multimodal magnetic resonance imaging in the evaluation of patients with acute stroke, including diffusion-weighted imaging, T2-weighted sequences/fluid-attenuated inversion recovery, magnetic resonance angiography, perfusion-weighted imaging, and gradient-recalled echo.

Magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography in emergency assessment of patients with suspected acute stroke: a prospective comparison.

Background: Although the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for the diagnosis of acute stroke is increasing, this method has not proved more effective than computed tomography (CT) in the emergency setting. We aimed to prospectively compare CT and MRI for emergency diagnosis of acute stroke.

Methods: We did a single-centre, prospective, blind comparison of non-contrast CT and MRI (with diffusion-weighted and susceptibility weighted images) in a consecutive series of patients referred for emergency assessment of suspected acute stroke.