Articles

Latest evidence for the use of targeted temperature management in neurology

Authors: Rainer Kollmar

Common physiological responses during TTM

Authors: Guillaume Geri, Benoit Champigneulle, Wulfran Bougouin, Michel Arnaout and Alain Cariou

Effective temperature management

Authors: Ian Tweedie

Intra-arrest-cooling PRO

Authors: Fabio Silvio Taccone

Defining dosage

Authors: Tommaso Pellis

Results and generalizability of the Target Temperature Management Trial and future research for patients admitted to intensive care after cardiac arrest

Authors: Niklas Nielsen

Let’s get started with targeted temperature management

Authors: Fabio Silvio Taccone

A remotely piloted aircraft system in major incident management: concept and pilot, feasibility study

Major incidents are complex, dynamic and bewildering task environments characterised by simultaneous, rapidly changing events, uncertainty and ill-structured problems. Efficient management, communication, deci...

Authors: Håkon B. Abrahamsen

A qualitative assessment of practitioner perspectives post-introduction of the first Continuous Professional Competence (CPC) guidelines for emergency medical technicians in Ireland

In November 2013, the Irish Regulator for emergency medical technicians (EMTs) introduced the first mandatory requirement for registrants to demonstrate evidence of continuous professional development (CPD)/co...

Authors: Shane Knox, Suzanne Dunne, Walter Cullen and Colum P Dunne

Injury characteristics and outcome of road traffic accident among victims at Adult Emergency Department of Tikur Anbessa specialized hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: a prospective hospital based study

Road traffic injuries are the eighth leading cause of death globally, and the leading cause of death for young people. More than a million people die each year on the world’s roads, and the risk of dying as a ...

Authors: Mohammed Seid, Aklilu Azazh, Fikre Enquselassie and Engida Yisma

Prospective study of recovery from copperhead snake envenomation: an observational study

Although much is known about signs, symptoms, and management in the acute phase of crotaline snake envenomation, little is known about signs, symptoms, function, and quality of life during the recovery phase. ...

Authors: Eric J Lavonas and Charles J Gerardo

Non-specific complaints in the ambulance; predisposing structural factors

The pre-hospital assessment non-specific complaint (NSC) often applies to patients whose diagnosis does not match any other specific assessment correlating to particular symptoms or diseases, though some previ...

Authors: Maaret Castrén, Lisa Kurland, Sofia Liljegard and Therese Djärv

Clinicopathological review of 156 appendicectomies for acute appendicitis in children in Ile-Ife, Nigeria: a retrospective analysis

Acute appendicitis is one of the most common causes of acute abdomen in children. Late surgical intervention is often associated with increase morbidity and sometimes fatal outcome. We sought to determine the ...

Authors: Talabi O Ademola, Sowande A Oludayo, Olowookere A Samuel, Etonyeaku C Amarachukwu, Komolafe O Akinwunmi and Adejuyigbe Olusanya

Patient safety incident capture resulting from incident reports: a comparative observational analysis

Patient safety incident (PSI) discovery is an essential component of quality improvement. When submitted, incident reports may provide valuable opportunities for PSI discovery. However, little objective inform...

Authors: Martin A Reznek, Kevin A Kotkowski, Michael W Arce, Zachary K Jepson, Steven B Bird and Chad E Darling

BMC Emergency Medicine reviewer acknowledgement 2014

The editors of BMC Emergency Medicine would like to thank all our reviewers who have contributed to the journal in Volume 14 (2014).

Authors: Giulia Mangiameli

Subjective reasons why immigrant patients attend the emergency department

Some patients visit a hospital’s emergency department (ED) for reasons other than an urgent medical condition. There is evidence that this practice may differ among patients from different backgrounds. The obj...

Authors: Ibrahim Mahmoud, Rob Eley and Xiang-Yu Hou

Predictors for outcome among cardiac arrest patients: the importance of initial cardiac arrest rhythm versus time to return of spontaneous circulation, a retrospective cohort study

In the past decade, early treatment of cardiac arrest (CA) victims has been improved in several ways, leading to more optimistic over all prognoses. However, the global survival rate after out-of-hospital CA (...

Authors: Ida Wibrandt, Kristine Norsted, Henrik Schmidt and Jens Schierbeck

Emergency care capacity in Freetown, Sierra Leone: a service evaluation

There is an increasing global recognition of the role of emergency medical services in improving population health. Emergency medical services remain underdeveloped in many low income countries, particularly i...

Authors: Rachel M Coyle and Hooi-Ling Harrison

Nine out of ten trauma calls to a Norwegian hospital are avoidable: a retrospective analysis

Our aim was to estimate the degree of overtriage (Injury Severity Score [ISS] ≤ 15) of trauma call patients in Nordland Hospital Bodø, Norway. We also determined the transportation time from injury to hospital...

Authors: Harald Stordahl, Eva Passas, Andreas Hopland and Erik Waage Nielsen

Pain, distress, and anticipated recovery for older versus younger emergency department patients after motor vehicle collision

Motor vehicle collisions (MVCs) are the second most common injury mechanism resulting in emergency department (ED) visits by older adults. MVCs result in substantial pain and psychological distress among young...

Authors: Gregory F Pereira, Samuel A McLean, Thomas J Tkacik, Robert A Swor, Jeffrey S Jones, David C Lee, David A Peak, Robert M Domeier, Niels K Rathlev, Phyllis L Hendry and Timothy F Platts-Mills

Effectiveness of physical exam signs for early detection of critical illness in pediatric systemic inflammatory response syndrome

Early detection of compensated pediatric septic shock requires diagnostic tests that are sensitive and specific. Four physical exam signs are recommended for detecting pediatric septic shock prior to hypotensi...

Authors: Halden F Scott, Aaron J Donoghue, David F Gaieski, Ronald F Marchese and Rakesh D Mistry

Validation of a diagnostic probability function for estimating probabilities of acute coronary syndrome

We recently reported about the derivation of a diagnostic probability function for acute coronary syndrome (ACS). The present study aims to validate the probability function as a rule-out criterion in a new sa...

Authors: Lukas Zimmerli, Johann Steurer, Reto Kofmehl, Maria M Wertli and Ulrike Held

Epidemiology of in-hospital trauma deaths in a Brazilian university hospital

The analysis of patterns of trauma deaths may improve the evaluation of a trauma system and identify areas that may benefit from more resources. The objective of this study was to analyze the epidemiology of t...

Authors: Adriano D Trajano, Bruno M Pereira and Gustavo P Fraga

A retrospective descriptive study of the characteristics of deliberate self-poisoning patients with single or repeat presentations to an Australian emergency medicine network in a one year period

A proportion of deliberate self-poisoning (DSP) patients present repeatedly to the emergency department (ED). Understanding the characteristics of frequent DSP patients and their presentation is a first step t...

Authors: Catherine A Martin, Rose Chapman, Asheq Rahman and Andis Graudins

Emergency department patient safety incident characterization: an observational analysis of the findings of a standardized peer review process

Emergency Department (ED) care has been reported to be prone to patient safety incidents (PSIs). Improving our understanding of PSIs is essential to prevent them. A standardized, peer review process was implem...

Authors: Zach K Jepson, Chad E Darling, Kevin A Kotkowski, Steven B Bird, Michael W Arce, Gregory A Volturo and Martin A Reznek

The Quik Fix study: a randomised controlled trial of brief interventions for young people with alcohol-related injuries and illnesses accessing emergency department and crisis support care

Alcohol is a major preventable cause of injury, disability and death in young people. Large numbers of young people with alcohol-related injuries and medical conditions present to hospital emergency department...

Authors: Leanne Hides, David J Kavanagh, Mark Daglish, Susan Cotton, Jason P Connor, Jan J Barendregt, Ross McD Young, Davina Sanders, Angela White and Lance Mergard

Identifying barriers and facilitators to ambulance service assessment and treatment of acute asthma: a focus group study

Acute asthma is a common reason for patients to seek care from ambulance services. Although better care of acute asthma can prevent avoidable morbidity and deaths, there has been little research into ambulance...

Authors: Deborah Shaw and Aloysius Niroshan Siriwardena

The effect of motorcycle helmet type, components and fixation status on facial injury in Klang Valley, Malaysia: a case control study

The effectiveness of helmets in reducing the risk of severe head injury in motorcyclists who were involved in a crash is well established. There is limited evidence however, regarding the extent to which helme...

Authors: Roszalina Ramli, Jennifer Oxley, Peter Hillard, Ahmad Farhan Mohd Sadullah and Roderick McClure

Factors influencing readiness to deploy in disaster response: findings from a cross-sectional survey of the Department of Veterans Affairs Disaster Emergency Medical Personnel System

The Disaster Emergency Medical Personnel System (DEMPS) program provides a system of volunteers whereby active or retired Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) personnel can register to be deployed to support ot...

Authors: Nicole K Zagelbaum, Kevin C Heslin, Judith A Stein, Josef Ruzek, Robert E Smith, Tam Nyugen and Aram Dobalian

Passive leg raise (PLR) during cardiopulmonary (CPR) – a method article on a randomised study of survival in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA)

It is estimated that about 275,000 inhabitants experience an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) every year in Europe. Survival in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is relatively low, generally between five per...

Authors: María F Jiménez-Herrera, Youcef Azeli, Eva Valero-Mora, Isaac Lucas-Guarque, Alfonso López-Gomariz, Elena Castro-Naval and Christer Axelsson

Rapid extrication of entrapped victims in motor vehicle wreckage using a Norwegian chain method – cross-sectional and feasibility study

Road traffic injury (RTI) is a global problem causing some 1,2 million deaths annually and another 20–50 million people sustain non-fatal injuries. Pre-hospital entrapment is a risk factor for complications an...

Authors: Sabina Fattah, Anne Siri Johnsen, Jan Einar Andersen, Trond Vigerust, Terje Olsen and Marius Rehn

Brief motivational intervention for adolescents treated in emergency departments for acute alcohol intoxication – a randomized-controlled trial

Alcohol misuse among youth is a major public health concern and numbers of adolescents admitted to the emergency department for acute alcoholic intoxication in Germany are recently growing. The emergency setti...

Authors: Silke Diestelkamp, Nicolas Arnaud, Peter-Michael Sack, Lutz Wartberg, Anne Daubmann and Rainer Thomasius

National targets, process transformation and local consequences in an NHS emergency department (ED): a qualitative study

In the attempt to reduce waiting times in emergency departments, various national health services have used benchmarking and the optimisation of patient flows. The aim of this study was to examine staff attitu...

Authors: Paraskevas Vezyridis and Stephen Timmons

Trauma exposure, posttraumatic stress disorder and the effect of explanatory variables in paramedic trainees

Emergency healthcare workers, including trainees and individuals in related occupations are at heightened risk of developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression owing to work-related stressors.

Authors: Celine B Fjeldheim, Jani Nöthling, Karin Pretorius, Marina Basson, Keith Ganasen, Robin Heneke, Karen J Cloete and Soraya Seedat

The Social Health Intervention Project (SHIP): Protocol for a randomized controlled clinical trial assessing the effectiveness of a brief motivational intervention for problem drinking and intimate partner violence in an urban emergency department

There is a strong reciprocal association between two highly prevalent public health problems: intimate partner violence and heavy drinking, both of which remain major sources of morbidity and mortality. Brief ...

Authors: Karin V Rhodes, Melissa Rodgers, Marilyn Sommers, Alexandra Hanlon and Paul Crits-Christoph

What decides the suspicion of acute coronary syndrome in acute chest pain patients?

Physicians assessing chest pain patients in the emergency department (ED) base the likelihood of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) mainly on ECG, symptom history and blood markers of myocardial injury. Among these...

Authors: Alexander Kamali, Martin Söderholm and Ulf Ekelund

Risk stratification of adult emergency department syncope patients to predict short-term serious outcomes after discharge (RiSEDS) study

While Canadian ED physicians discharge most syncope patients with no specific further follow-up, approximately 5% will suffer serious outcomes after ED discharge. The goal of this study is to prospectively ide...

Authors: Venkatesh Thiruganasambandamoorthy, Ian G Stiell, Marco LA Sivilotti, Heather Murray, Brian H Rowe, Eddy Lang, Andrew McRae, Robert Sheldon and George A Wells

Thoraco- abdominal impalement injury: a case report

Impalement injury is an uncommon presentation in the emergency department (ED), and penetrating thoraco-abdominal injuries demand immediate life-saving measures and prompt care. Massive penetrating trauma by i...

Authors: Gyanendra Malla, Bibhusan Basnet, Rais Vohra, Casey Herrforth, Shailesh Adhikari and Amit Bhandari

Use of prehospital ultrasound in North America: a survey of emergency medical services medical directors

Advances in ultrasound imaging technology have made it more accessible to prehospital providers. Little is known about how ultrasound is being used in the prehospital environment and we suspect that it is not ...

Authors: John Taylor, Kyle McLaughlin, Andrew McRae, Eddy Lang and Andrew Anton

Consensus on items and quantities of clinical equipment required to deal with a mass casualties big bang incident: a national Delphi study

Major short-notice or sudden impact incidents, which result in a large number of casualties, are rare events. However health services must be prepared to respond to such events appropriately. In the United Kin...

Authors: Edward A S Duncan, Keith Colver, Nadine Dougall, Kevin Swingler, John Stephenson and Purva Abhyankar

BMC Emergency Medicine reviewer acknowledgement, 2013

The editors of BMC Emergency Medicine would like to thank all our reviewers whohave contributed to the journal in Volume 13 (2013).

Authors: Catia Cornacchia

Predictors for delayed encephalopathy following acute carbon monoxide poisoning

In Japan, many carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning cases are transported to emergency settings, making treatment and prognostic assessment an urgent task. However, there is currently no reliable means to predict wh...

Authors: Kaoru Kudo, Kotaro Otsuka, Junko Yagi, Katsumi Sanjo, Noritaka Koizumi, Atsuhiko Koeda, Miki Yokota Umetsu, Yasuhito Yoshioka, Ayumi Mizugai, Toshinari Mita, Yu Shiga, Fumito Koizumi, Hikaru Nakamura and Akio Sakai

Quality of emergency medical care in Gondar University Referral Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia: a survey of patients’ perspectives

Ethiopia has fairly good coverage but very low utilization of health care services. Emergency medical care services require fast, correct and curious services to clients as they present with acute problems. In...

Authors: Belaynew Wasie Taye, Mensur Ousman Yassin and Zemene Tigabu Kebede

Cut throat injuries at a university teaching hospital in northwestern Tanzania: a review of 98 cases

Cut throat injuries though rarely reported in literature pose a great therapeutic challenge because multiple vital structures are vulnerable to injuries in the small, confined unprotected area. A sudden increa...

Authors: Japhet M Gilyoma, Kiyeti A Hauli and Phillipo L Chalya

All purulence is local – epidemiology and management of skin and soft tissue infections in three urban emergency departments

Skin and soft tissue infection (SSTIs) are commonly treated in emergency departments (EDs). While the precise role of antibiotics in treating SSTIs remains unclear, most SSTI patients receive empiric antibioti...

Authors: Chris Merritt, John P Haran, Jacob Mintzer, Joseph Stricker and Roland C Merchant

Continuous professional competence (CPC) for emergency medical technicians in Ireland: educational needs assessment

As in other countries, the Irish Regulator for Pre-Hospital practitioners, the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council (PHECC), will introduce a Continuous Professional Competence (CPC) framework for all Emergency...

Authors: Shane Knox, Walter Cullen and Colum Dunne

An association between systolic blood pressure and stroke among patients with impaired consciousness in out-of-hospital emergency settings

Stroke is difficult to diagnose when consciousness is disturbed. However few reports have discussed the clinical predictors of stroke in out-of-hospital emergency settings. This study aims to evaluate the asso...

Authors: Taro Irisawa, Taku Iwami, Tetsuhisa Kitamura, Chika Nishiyama, Tomohiko Sakai, Kayo Tanigawa-Sugihara, Sumito Hayashida, Tatsuya Nishiuchi, Tadahiko Shiozaki, Osamu Tasaki, Takashi Kawamura, Atsushi Hiraide and Takeshi Shimazu

Methodology for developing quality indicators for the care of older people in the Emergency Department

Compared with younger people, older people have a higher risk of adverse health outcomes when presenting to emergency departments. As the population ages, older people will make up an increasing proportion of ...

Authors: Melinda Martin-Khan, Ellen Burkett, Linda Schnitker, Richard N Jones and Leonard C Gray

Reliability of team-based self-monitoring in critical events: a pilot study

Teamwork is a critical component during critical events. Assessment is mandatory for remediation and to target training programmes for observed performance gaps.

Authors: Martin Stocker, Lynda Menadue, Suzan Kakat, Kumi De Costa, Julie Combes, Winston Banya, Mary Lane, Ajay Desai and Margarita Burmester

Design of the PRINCESS trial: pre-hospital resuscitation intra-nasal cooling effectiveness survival study (PRINCESS)

Therapeutic hypothermia (TH, 32-34°C) has been shown to improve neurological outcome in comatose survivors of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) with ventricular tachycardia or fibrillation. Earlier initiat...

Authors: Per Nordberg, Fabio Silvio Taccone, Maaret Castren, Anatolij Truhlár, Didier Desruelles, Sune Forsberg, Jacob Hollenberg, Jean-Louis Vincent and Leif Svensoon