Effect of Prehospital Blood Draws on Length of Stay for Chest Pain Patients in the Emergency Department: A Pilot Study.

This article provides research of cardiac biomarkers being drawn in the prehospital setting compared with the emergency department (ED) on intervals critical to the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction. This is a retrospective chart review of patients brought to the ED of a single, urban teaching hospital by a single emergency medical service (EMS) agency with a chief complaint of "chest pain." We abstracted specific patient characteristics, intervals, positive troponin values, and rates of hemolysis from hospital records utilizing a custom data abstraction tool designed for this study through consensus of the authors.

Stress Reduction in Postcardiac Surgery Family Members: Implementation of a Postcardiac Surgery Tool Kit.

The intensive care unit (ICU) can be a place of stress, anxiety, and emotional instability for both patients and families. Medical and nursing care during this acute time is patient focused, and family members are often left in the dark. Unintentional exclusion from information results in high levels of stress, anxiety, and uncertainty for families.

Evaluation of an Educational Video: What to Expect on the First Day of Chemotherapy.

According to the American Cancer Society, more than 1.6 million new cases of cancer were diagnosed in 2015. Anxiety levels in individuals diagnosed with cancer are high, with the highest levels occurring at the time of diagnosis.

An Assessment of an Outpatient Antimicrobial Therapy Program in a Rural Medical Center : A Retrospective Chart Review.

Current literature supports outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT). This article presents results from a research study that evaluated an OPAT program that treated community-acquired pneumonia. If patients had the opportunity to receive outpatient intravenous antibiotics for community-acquired pneumonia, would this prevent future hospitalization? Was there a decrease in hospital admissions? An informal cost-benefit analysis comparing OPAT with inpatient hospital admissions for the same disease was also reviewed to provide evidence whether there was a change.