Circadian pattern of intubation rates in ED patients with congestive heart failure.

Purpose: A previous study showed that pulmonary edema patients presenting between noon and 4 pm have the highest rates of myocardial infarction and death. We hypothesized that the highest intubation rates would also occur at these times.

Basic Procedures: We performed a retrospective cohort study of consecutive patients seen by emergency department physicians in 15 hospital emergency departments (1996-2003).

Anxiety-related visits to New Jersey emergency departments after September 11, 2001.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of September 11, 2001 on anxiety-related visits to selected Emergency Departments (EDs). We performed a retrospective analysis of consecutive patients seen by emergency physicians in 15 New Jersey EDs located within a 50-mile radius of the World Trade Center from July 11 through December 11 in each of 6 years, 1996--2001. We chose by consensus all ICD-9 (International Classification of Diseases, 9th revision) codes related to anxiety.

Emergency department visits for concern regarding anthrax--New Jersey, 2001.

Introduction: In October of 2001, after letters processed in Trenton, New Jersey, resulted in multiple cases of anthrax, emergency departments (EDs) in New Jersey experienced an increase in visits from patients concerned about possible exposure to agents of biologic terrorism. Information about the effect of an actual biologic terrorism attack on the emergency department population might be useful in the design of biosurveillance systems, particularly with regard to their performance during the mitigation phase that occurs after an attack. In addition, such information might help identify issues that arise regarding the public health response in the ED setting.

Cardiac events in New Jersey after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack.

The higher stress associated with the World Trade Center (WTC) attacks on September 11, 2001, may have resulted in more cardiac events particularly in those living in close proximity. Our goal was to determine if there was an increase in cardiac events in a subset of emergency departments (EDs) within a 50-mi radius of the WTC. We performed a retrospective analysis of consecutive patients seen by ED physicians in 16 EDs for the 60 days before and after September 11 in 2000-2002.

Calendar patterns in the occurrence of cardiac arrest.

Our objective was to determine whether monthly and daily patterns existed in cardiac arrests in a 7 emergency department (ED) cohorts in New Jersey. We conducted a retrospective analysis of a computerized database over an 11-year period containing 2,370,233 patient visits and 6,827 nontraumatic cardiac arrests. Time-series regression revealed colder months having more cardiac arrests, especially for patients >or=65 years of age.

Storage temperatures of medications on an air medical helicopter.

Introduction: The safety and efficacy of medications stored on air medical helicopters may be adversely affected by extreme temperatures. The purpose of this study was to determine whether temperatures inside an air medical helicopter drug box were within the U.S.