BACKGROUND The National Service Framework for coronary heart disease established clear standards for the management of patients with acute myocardial infarction in March 2000. This study evaluates an emergency department's thrombolysis performance in light of these standards. SETTING Inner city teaching hospital emergency department. METHODS The data were prospectively collected using a for...

STUDY OBJECTIVE More than half of all acute myocardial infarction patients still do not meet benchmark reperfusion times, and the triage assessment that all patients receive when they arrive at an emergency department (ED) is a hospital-level process that has not been studied as a potential contributor to delays. Our objective was to examine the triage of acute myocardial infarction patients (S...

BACKGROUND Clinical governance requires health care professionals to improve standards of care and has resulted in comparison of clinical performance data. The Myocardial Infarction National Audit Project (a UK cardiology dataset) tabulates its performance. However funnel plots are the display method of choice for institutional comparison. We aimed to demonstrate that funnel plots may be derive...

OBJECTIVE To reduce the time between arrival at hospital of a patient with acute myocardial infarction and administration of thrombolytic therapy (door to needle time) by the introduction of nurse initiated thrombolysis in the accident and emergency department. METHODS Two acute chest pain nurse specialists (ACPNS) based in A&E for 62.5 hours of the week were responsible for initiating thromb...

BACKGROUND Providing intravenous thrombolysis with short door-to-needle time is the result of a complex process that requires specific work standards. To expedite care for acute ischemic stroke patients, close collaboration between all participating health care professionals is required. The aim of this project was to reduce in-hospital treatment delay for acute ischemic stroke patients through...

BACKGROUND Patients with acute myocardial infarction may have worse outcomes if they also have a history of depression. The early management of acute myocardial infarction is known to influence outcomes, and patients with a coexisting history of depression may be treated differently in the emergency department than those without one. Our goal was to determine whether having a charted history of...