Resuscitating the physician-patient relationship: emergency department communication in an academic medical center.

Study Objective: We characterize communication in an urban, academic medical center emergency department (ED) with regard to the timing and nature of the medical history survey and physical examination and discharge instructions.

Methods: Audiotaping and coding of 93 ED encounters (62 medical history surveys and physical examinations, 31 discharges) with a convenience sample of 24 emergency medicine residents, 8 nurses, and 93 nonemergency adult patients.

Results: Patients were 68% women and 84% black, with a mean age of 45 years.

"Between me and the computer": increased detection of intimate partner violence using a computer questionnaire.

Study Objective: The emergency department is a problem-focused environment in which routine screening for intimate partner violence (IPV) is difficult. We hypothesized that screening for IPV during computer-based health-risk assessment would be acceptable to patients and improve detection.

Methods: We performed a descriptive study of IPV data collected during a controlled trial of computer-based health promotion in an urban hospital ED.