Background: Attention to several clinical issues simultaneously and timeliness of proper treatment is of prime importance in Emergency Medicine. Simulation Based Training is a growing trend for clinical resident training which has been proposed for enhancing of residents multi-tasking abilities. The Simulation Module for Assessment of Resident’s Targeted Event Response is a methodology which de...

BACKGROUND Syncope can be caused by serious conditions not evident during initial evaluation, which can lead to serious adverse events, including death, after disposition from the emergency department. We sought to develop a clinical decision tool to identify adult patients with syncope who are at risk of a serious adverse event within 30 days after disposition from the emergency department. ...

This exploratory study examines how fire and police departments used online media during the 2012 Hurricane Sandy and how these media can be used to affect trust with members of the public during such an event. Using trust theory, we describe how online communications provide a means for emergency responders to appear trustworthy through online acts of ability, integrity, and benevolence. We co...

Emergency department (ED) procedural sedation and analgesia is widely and routinely performed; serious complications are rare. We describe the first reported case of aspiration during procedural sedation in the ED. Although our patient required endotracheal intubation and critical care admission, there was no adverse long-term outcome. Given that there were no apparent predisposing factors, we ...

This paper describes a discrete event stochastic simulation of a hospital emergency department, and the development of a metamodel of that simulation. The metamodeling technique used is artificial neural networks, which are trained utilizing the output of the simulation. The performance of the neural network metamodel is compared to the simulation performance for estimating the mean and varianc...

This paper proposes an unusual event recognition algorithm, which is a part of a mobile alarm system. Our systems focus on unusual event. When the system detects the unusual event, the photos of emergency situation are passed to the user’s portable devices such as mobile phone or PDA along with event description to help the user’s final decision. The system combines the foreground segmentation,...

• The launch of the Canadian Patient Safety Institute (CPSI), a national non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness about patient safety and to facilitating the implementation of best practices (www.patientsafetyinstitute.ca). • The publication of the results of the Canadian Adverse Events Study (Baker, Norton et al. 2004), which identified an adverse events (AEs) rate of 7.5% (proj...

INTRODUCTION The classical doctrine of mass toxicological events provides general guidelines for the management of a wide range of "chemical" events. The guidelines include provisions for the: (1) protection of medical staff with personal protective equipment; (2) simple triage of casualties; (3) airway protection and early intubation; (4) undressing and decontamination at the hospital gates; a...

INTRODUCTION Terrorist use of a radiological dispersal device (RDD, or "dirty bomb"), which combines a conventional explosive device with radiological materials, is among the National Planning Scenarios of the United States government. Understanding employee willingness to respond is critical for planning experts. Previous research has demonstrated that perception of threat and efficacy is key ...

Existing evidence suggests that communication failures are common in the operating room, and that they lead to increased complications, including infections. Use of a surgical safety checklist may prevent communication failures and reduce complications. Initial data from the World Health Organization Surgical Safety Checklist (WHO SSC) demonstrated significant reductions in both morbidity and m...