The purpose of this case study is to understand what influences patient decisions to go to the emergency room. This case study is discovery oriented, listening to patient perspectives and providing a model for health care providers and policy makers to discuss. The research setting is a regional hospital in the southeast, with a sample of 20 patients meeting pre-set criteria. Using qualitative ...

BACKGROUND In older adults, underweight (body mass index [BMI] <18.5) has been associated with increased mortality. This increased mortality risk may be associated with increased health care utilization. We evaluated the relationship between underweight and hospitalization, emergency room visits, and mortality. METHODS An analysis of a retrospective cohort study was conducted at a multisite a...

Early identification of patients who need hospitalization or patients who should be discharged would be helpful for the management of acute asthma in the emergency room. The objective of the present study was to examine the clinical and pulmonary functional measures used during the first hour of assessment of acute asthma in the emergency room in order to predict the outcome. We evaluated 88 pa...

OBJECTIVES This study investigated patients with oral and maxillofacial lacerations who visited the emergency room over a three-year period in an effort to determine the optimal treatment for these injuries. MATERIALS AND METHODS This study examined 1,742 patients with oral and maxillofacial lacerations with 2,014 different laceration locations who visited the emergency room of Pusan National...

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the long term medical costs attributable to motor vehicle accidents (MVAs) for all persons in Alberta, Canada in 1999, primarily using observational data. Injury claims with personal identifiers for 1999 were reported by the automobile insurance companies. These records were linked to the provincial health registry which covers the entire population. The...

OBJECTIVE The records of the emergency room of Landspitali University Hospital in Iceland provide important information on the prevalence and incidence of various problems. The objective of this research is to evaluate the reliability of data concerning the visits of adolescents under the influence of alcohol. DATA AND METHODS Records of visits to the Emergency Room of Landspitali University ...

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to undertake a proof of concept that demonstrated the use of primary care data and natural language processing and term extraction to assess emergency room use. The study extracted biopsychosocial concepts from primary care free text and related them to inappropriate emergency room use through the use of odds ratios. METHODS De-identified free text no...

OBJECTIVES To study a sample of asthmatic children to get to know how the disease is managed by caretakers and to identify predictive factors associated with attendance in emergency room for asthma. METHODS A cross-sectional study nested in a cohort was undertaken in the urban area of Pelotas, Southern Brazil. 981 children aged 4-5 years, who belong to the cohort of 1993, participated in this...

OBJECTIVE To determine the epidemiology and pattern of emergency operating room workload in Nemazee hospital affiliated with Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. METHODS All surgical emergency operations which were performed in Nemazee hospital, Shiraz, Iran were collected over twelve months (September 2007 to September 2008). The data obtained included indications, presenting...