Beginning with the current issue, the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine (CJEM) will feature an eight-part series of invited commentaries dedicated to emergency medical services (EMS). These commentaries and accompanying original research will feature topics in EMS that are relevant to emergency medicine (EM) practice. With the pressures of providing quality, fiscally responsible health car...

STUDY OBJECTIVE We seek to provide current, comprehensive, and physician-level data for critical procedures performed in a high-volume pediatric emergency department (ED). METHODS We conducted a retrospective study of all critical procedures performed in the ED of a tertiary care pediatric institution. Data were collected from written records of resuscitative care provided. The primary outcom...

Jing Li, Huashan Wang, Qiang Zhong, Xiangdong Zhu, Sy-Jou Chen, Yuanyu Qian, Jim Costakis, Gabrielle Bunney, David G. Beiser, Alan R. Leff, E. Douglas Lewandowski, J. Michael O Donnell, and Terry L. Vanden Hoek Program in Advanced Resuscitation Medicine, Center for Cardiovascular Research, and Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System, Chicago, I...

United States health care costs are growing at an unsustainable rate; one significant contributor has been the overuse of health services. Physicians have a professional ethical obligation to serve as stewards of society's resources and take responsibility for health care costs. We propose a framework for identifying overused services and a research and implementation agenda to guide stewardshi...

BACKGROUND The objective of this review is to identify and critically evaluate the published literature on emergency medicine (EM) training programs in resource-limited health-care settings in order to provide insight for developing EM training programs in such health systems. METHODS A literature search was conducted up to the end of April 2011 using MEDLINE, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library, EB...

To understand trends in emergency medicine and interprofessional roles in delivering this care, we analyzed a 10-year period (1995-2004) by provider, patient characteristics, and diagnoses. The focus was on how doctors, physician assistants (PAs) and nurse practitioners (NPs) share emergency medicine visits. The National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey of over 1 billion "weighted" emerg...

STUDY OBJECTIVE We determine the rate and details of interventions associated with emergency medicine pharmacist review of discharge prescriptions for patients discharged from the emergency department (ED). Additionally, we evaluate care providers' satisfaction with such services provided by emergency medicine pharmacists. METHODS This was a prospective observational study in the ED of an aca...

This article is one of ten reviews selected from the Annual Update in Intensive Care and Emergency medicine 2016. Other selected articles can be found online at http://www.biomedcentral.com/collections/annualupdate2016. Further information about the Annual Update in Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine is available from http://www.springer.com/series/8901.