English

Objectives Emergency department (ED) crowding is an increasing problem in many countries. The purpose of this study was to develop a quantitative model that estimates the degree of crowding based on workload in Swedish EDs. Methods At five different EDs, the head nurse and physician assessed the workload on a scale from 1 to 6…

Objectives Despite a lack of scientific evidence, oxygen has long been a part of standard treatment for patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). However, several studies suggest that oxygen therapy may have negative cardiovascular effects. We here describe a randomized controlled trial, i.e. Supplemental Oxygen in Catheterized Coronary Emergency Reperfusion (SOCCER), aiming to evaluate the…

The majority of patients who present to the Emergency Department with vertigo suffer from benign conditions. However, a few percent of these patients have life-threatening conditions, such as a cerebellar stroke. The HINTS clinical decision rule (Head-Impulse test, Nystagmus, Test-of-Skew) allows the physician to identify patients with an acute vestibular syndrome of central origin. HINTS…

Checklists make it easier to do the right thing in the emergency room. That’s the idea behind a website launched this month. It will contain proposals for checklists on what information should be obtained for the assessment of different conditions at the emergency department. All emergency personnel are invited to participate in this development project.

Although there are no evidence for routine rectal palpation in patients with acute abdomen, there are other cases in which rectal palpation should be performed.