Internal and Emergency Medicine最新文献

The ongoing demographic, epidemiological and social changes are dramatically raising the clinical and care complexity of patients admitted to internal medicine (IM) departments. Collecting evidence for a better characterization of patients is crucial to tailor future interventions based on patient's real needs. The aim of this prospective multicenter study was to describe the complexity of care of patients hospitalized in IM by calculating the complexity of care (ICC) score, through the combination of clinical instability (NEWS score) and care dependency scales (mICD). Furthermore, social frailty was assessed according to potential difficulty in discharge planning. 3912 patients were enrolled (median age 78 years); 71% had a Charlson Comorbidity Index ≥ 5. The ICC score was high in 14.7% of patients, while 15% exhibited a NEWS score at least moderate. One in four patients presented moderate to critical social frailty. The length of stay was correlated with social frailty, mICD and ICC scores, but not with NEWS. In-hospital mortality was correlated with the severity of all the considered scores. A relevant proportion of IM patients exhibited a high complexity of care. Our data support a model in which approximately 15% of IM beds are designated for clinically unstable patients managed in intermediate care sub-units. The substantial burden of social frailty highlights the urgency of national plans allowing at the same time to cover the needs of not self-sufficient and socially disadvantaged patients, and to efficiently address the issue of emergency department boarding.

In patients with pneumonia, lung ultrasound is a useful diagnostic and monitoring tool and has been proven to be superior to physical examination and chest X-ray in terms of feasibility and diagnostic accuracy. Guidelines do not address lung ultrasound as part of the diagnostic workup or as monitoring tool which is surprising. This article provides a succinct overview on the currently available evidence on efficacy and utility of lung ultrasound in patients with a clinical suspicion of pneumonia. Various clinical settings are considered, in addition to limitations, pitfalls and advanced techniques. The aim of this paper is to equip the clinician with the necessary knowledge to maximize lung ultrasound in pneumonia as effective diagnostic and monitoring tool.

Background: skin lacerations are one of the main causes of children's referral to the emergency department (ED). We introduced in our general ED a pediatric sedo-analgesia protocol (SAP) for suturing skin wounds using LAT gel, a local anesthetic solution of lidocaine, adrenaline and tetracaine, with or without low-dose oral midazolam according to patient's age, to improve the experience of laceration repair.

Methods: Primary outcomes were improvement of suturing experience for ED operators (as a reduction in the desire to avoid the procedure) and of the adequacy of sedo-analgesia provided, investigated through two different surveys administered to the ED staff before and after the introduction of the SAP. Children's parents were asked about satisfaction with the sedo-analgesia provided. Data were collected prospectively.

Results: The analysis included 85 and 60 healthcare professionals involved in the suture of skin wounds in children, respectively before and after the introduction of our SAP. The introduction of the SAP reduced ED operators' stress and improved the entire suturing experience. The pre-post analysis showed a statistically significant improvement in the perceived adequacy of the provided sedo-analgesia (p < 0.0001) and a significant reduction of operators who would have avoided the procedure (p < 0.0001). The great majority of children's parents expressed a high level of satisfaction.

Conclusions: The introduction of a LAT gel and low-dose oral midazolam SAP allows an improvement of both the sedo-analgesia provided and the ED operators' suturing experience of skin lacerations in children. Our SAP appeared to be safe and effective, with low cost and high tolerability.

Burnout in healthcare workers is a global issue, with Emergency Medicine (EM) particularly impacted. Many countries have tried implementing wellness initiatives to reduce burnout and improve wellness. This paper summarizes interventions implemented in Canada to-date with the aim of supporting the design of wellness interventions in EDs globally. A systematic review and a grey literature search were completed in November 2023. Original studies in both English and French that included the implementation and evaluation of a wellness intervention in EDs in Canada were included. The study design, content of the intervention, target population, and outcomes were extracted and narratively analyzed. 13 studies were included. Each implemented a unique wellness intervention for EDs. All three studies (3/3, 100%) that included a structured wellness curriculum demonstrated significant improvement in burnout as measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory, physical health (PCS-8), and Brief Resident Wellness Profile (BRWP). Other interventions included Ice Cream Rounds, therapy dogs, changing the duration of night shifts, and sessions on resilience and self-care. Our Canada-wide analysis of wellness interventions identified initiatives geared towards trainees, staff, or entire ED workface groups. Examples include educational programs, dedicated sessions for compassion literacy and resilience, critical events debriefing, and optimizing shift schedules. Structured wellness curriculums seem to be effective, and this area warrants further study. Moreover, we identify a need for global collaboration to build wellness programs and for more easily translatable standardized outcome measures for assessing the efficacy of wellness programs in EM.

Accurate assessment of severity in diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) can optimise early management and facilitate prioritisation for high acuity care. The primary aim was to evaluate the relationship between severity of acidosis (considering pH, bicarbonate, and anion gap) and hyperosmolarity with hospital mortality. Secondary outcomes included intensive care mortality, mechanical ventilation, vasopressor/inotrope use, and dialysis. A retrospective cohort study was conducted of adults (≥ 16 yr) with DKA admitted to US intensive care units. Data were extracted from the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care (MIMIC)-IV dataset and eICU Collaborative Research Database. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression analyses were used to evaluate biochemistry obtained within 4 h of admission and the primary and secondary outcomes. We identified 4071 eligible admissions. There was no clear relationship between serum bicarbonate or anion gap and any outcome. Almost half the population did not have blood gas analysis within 4 h of admission; for 2292 patients with blood gases available, pH < 7 and inappropriately high PCO₂ were associated with significant increases in mortality and all secondary outcomes. Osmolarity ≥ 320mosm/L was associated with fourfold increased mortality and higher rates of mechanical ventilation, use of vasopressors/inotropes, and dialysis. Failure of adaptive mechanisms (thirst and hyperventilation) indicating physiological decompensation may be more important for risk stratification in DKA than the degree of acidosis, which was only associated with outcome when severely abnormal. Blood gas analysis is essential to adequately assess disease severity as bicarbonate and anion gap were not predictive of outcome.

The National Early Warning Score (NEWS), Quick Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA), and modified qSOFA (MqSOFA) are scoring systems that rely on vital signs. However, NEWS is time-consuming, qSOFA has low sensitivity, and MqSOFA includes a difficult calculation. To address these issues, we developed the Revised qSOFA score (RqSOFA) that consists of percutaneous oxygen saturation, oxygen usage, Simple Shock Index, and the parameters of qSOFA. The predictability of RqSOFA was examined for in-hospital mortality among patients who were transported by ambulance. This observational cohort study included all patients transported via ambulance to an Emergency Department between 2019 and 2021. Patients who had prehospital cardiopulmonary arrest, were pregnant, were younger than 15 years old, arrived from another hospital, and had missing data were excluded. The Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve (AUROC) of RqSOFA, as well as its sensitivity and specificity at the optimal cut-off point, were determined and compared to those of qSOFA, NEWS and MqSOFA. Among 1849 included patients, 53 died in the hospital. The AUROC for RqSOFA was 0.867 and the optimal cut-off point was 2. The sensitivity and specificity were 0.849 and 0.802, respectively. The AUROC of RqSOFA was larger than qSOFA but had no significance with NEWS and MqSOFA. RqSOFA exhibited the same sensitivity and better specificity compared to NEWS. There were no differences in sensitivity and specificity between RqSOFA and MqSOFA. In conclusion, RqSOFA exhibited superior predictability for in-hospital mortality to qSOFA and NEWS, while offering similar predictability to MqSOFA despite relying only on simple measurements.

We tried to define the association of adverse cardiovascular (CV) events, such as CV death and all-cause death among patients with heart failure (HF) and/or atrial fibrillation (AF) receiving traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) or not. We used data from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database in a retrospective cohort study using propensity scoring (PS) matching. We matched 54,859 and 18,307 patients each to the treatment vs. non-treatment group and found a significantly decreased risk of adverse CV events after PS score matching, suggesting that TCM reduces the risk of these adverse outcomes. Compared to HF patients without AF in non-TCM user, HF patients without AF in TCM user and HF patients with AF in TCM user had decreased risk of CV death by 0.50 times (95% CI 0.49, 0.52) and 0.84 times (95% CI 0.49,0.52), respectively. HF patients without AF in TCM user and HF patients with AF in TCM user had decreased risk of all-cause death relative to HF patients without AF in non-TCM user by 0.53 times (95% CI 0.52, 0.54) and 0.74 times (95% CI 0.72,0.76), respectively. The results said that there is significant reduction of decrease in risk of CV death and all death among the patients receiving TCM, especially those without AF.