OBJECTIVES This study identifies best practice for shift handover and introduces a new tool used to hand over clinical and operational issues at the end of a shift in the emergency department (ED). METHODS Literature review, semi-structured interviews and observations of handover were used to develop a standardised process for handover. Participants were ED middle grades, consultants and seni...

In this paper, we address the issue of whether it is economically advantageous to concentrate emergency rooms (ERs) in large hospitals. Besides identifying economies of scale of ERs, we also focus on chain economies. The latter term refers to the effects on a hospital's costs of ER patients who also need follow-up inpatient or outpatient hospital care. We show that, for each service examined, p...

Emergency management situations are highly complex and require the collaboration of multiple parties for adequate responses to incidents. The design and validation of effective emergency response systems is critical in order to improve the overall effectiveness of teams tasked to manage emergency situations. We report ongoing work whose objective is to increase the efficiency of emergency respo...

A natural disaster is defined as an event of nature, which overwhelms local resources and threatens the function and safety of the community. Generally, disasters are the ultimate test of a community’s emergency response capability. A thoughtful and well-organised emergency strategy will be able to quickly adjust and adapt to unforeseen situations and complications. (1) An emergency strategy th...

INTRODUCTION The prevalence of behavioral disorders is substantially higher in stressful working environments such as emergency departments. The present study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of personality disorders among emergency nurses. METHODS In the present epidemiologic study, the prevalence of personality disorders among emergency nurses of three educational hospitals, Tehran, Iran, w...

T his section of Focus on Childhood and Adolescent Mental Health includes timely articles related to the effect of trauma on children, characterization of pediatric psychiatry emergency room visits, and cognitive side effects of mood stabilizers in children and adolescents. Do children who are directly or indirectly exposed to a single incident of trauma develop posttraumatic stress disorder (P...

OBJECTIVE To examine how a mass-gathering event (the Federation Internationale de Football Association World Cup, 2010, South Africa) impacts trauma and mortality in the pediatric (≤ 18 years) population. STUDY DESIGN We investigated pediatric emergency visits at Cape Town's 3 largest public trauma centers and 3 private hospital groups, as well as deaths investigated by the 3 city mortuaries....