INTRODUCTION We tested the effect of a brief disposition process intervention on residents' time to disposition and emergency department (ED) length of stay (LOS) in high acuity ED patients. METHODS This was a quasi-experimental study design in a single teaching hospital where ED residents are responsible for administrative bed requests for patients. Enrollment was performed for intervention ...

BACKGROUND Delayed response to clinical deterioration of ward patients is common. METHODS We performed a prospective before-and-after study in all patients admitted to two clinical ward areas in a district general hospital in the UK. We examined the effect on clinical outcomes of deploying an electronic automated advisory vital signs monitoring and notification system, which relayed abnormal ...

Informed consent in elderly patients presents many ethical and legal challenges. Most aging patients are competent to provide consent for medical care. The purpose of informed consent is to promote autonomy, to protect a patient from undesired treatment, and to help the patient to make appropriate medical care decisions that correlate with his or her personal values. A surrogate decision-maker ...

A b st ra ct There have been important advances in the science of neonatal resuscitation and various international resuscitation committees have formulated evidence-based recommendations for the performance of resuscitation at birth. The new guidelines for resuscitation at birth were developed by International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR) and were presented at 2005 International C...

BACKGROUND There has been evidence in recent years that people with intellectual disabilities in acute hospitals are at risk of preventable deterioration due to failures of the healthcare services to implement the reasonable adjustments they need. The aim of this paper is to explore the challenges in monitoring and preventing patient safety incidents involving people with intellectual disabilit...

Hypotensive resuscitation is a component of damage control resuscitation, the evolving approach to resuscitation in severely injured trauma patients. Resuscitation strategies used in treating severely injured trauma patients have changed dramatically over the last 20 years. The purpose of this review is to examine the current literature pertaining to hypotensive resuscitation, explore its use i...