Unexpected death after emergency department visit

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Several studies suggest that air pollution, particularly PM2.5, increases morbidity and mortality, Emergency Department (ED) visits, and hospitalizations for acute respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. However, no prior study in Southeastern Asia (SEA) has examined the effects of air pollutants on ED visits and health outcomes. This study focused on the association of the Air Quality Index (AQI) of PM2.5 and other pollutants' effects on ED visits, hospitalization, and unexpected deaths due to acute respiratory disease, acute coronary syndrome (ACS), acute heart failure (AHF), and stroke...

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether maternal cannabis use disorder is associated with infant hospitalization or death in the first year of life. METHODS: We queried an administrative birth cohort derived from the hospital discharge database maintained by the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development and linked with vital statistics files. We included singleton, live-birth deliveries between 2011 and 2018. Pregnancies with cannabis use disorder were classified from International Classification of Disease codes...

BACKGROUND: Emergency departments (EDs) are operating at or above capacity, which has negative consequences on patients in terms of quality of care and morbi-mortality. Redirection strategies for low-acuity ED patients to primary care practices are usually based on subjective eligibility criteria that sometimes necessitate formal medical assessment. Literature investigating the effect of those interventions is equivocal. The aim of the present study was to assess the safety of a redirection process using an electronic clinical support system used by the triage nurse without physician assessment...

OBJECTIVES: This study presents the design of an integrated, proactive palliative care pathway covering the full care cycle and evaluates its effects using 3 types of outcomes: (1) physician-reported outcomes, (2) outcomes reported by family, and (3) (utilization of) health care outcomes. DESIGN: A clustered, partially controlled before-after study with a multidisciplinary integrated palliative care pathway as its main intervention. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: after assessment in hospital departments of oncology, and geriatrics, and in 13 primary care facilities, terminally ill patients were proactively included into the pathway...

OBJECTIVES: This study sought to examine the feasibility, safety, clinical outcomes, and costs associated with computed tomography-derived fractional flow reserve (FFRCT ) in acute chest pain (ACP) patients in a coronary computed tomography angiography (CTA)-based triage program. BACKGROUND: FFRCT is useful in determining lesion-specific ischemia in patients with stable ischemic heart disease, but its utility in ACP has not been studied. METHODS: ACP patients with no known coronary artery disease undergoing coronary CTA and coronary CTA with FFRCT were studied...

OBJECTIVES: Emergency departments (EDs) frequently provide care for nonemergent health conditions outside of usual physician office hours. A nonprofit, fully integrated health insurer/care delivery system that enrolls socioeconomically disadvantaged adults with complex health needs partnered with an ambulance service provider to offer after-hours urgent care by specially trained and equipped paramedics in patients' residences. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health gave this initiative, the Acute Community Care Program (ACCP), a Special Project Waiver...

The opioid epidemic has become a national public health and safety problem affecting both adults and adolescents. There is little doubt that this epidemic is rooted in the need for pain control after surgery and that orthopedic surgeons have in part contributed to opioid overprescription. Indeed, opioid abuse, misuse, and diversion are associated with increased hospitalizations, emergency department visits, and associated health care costs. In addition, postoperative exposure to opioids correlates with long-term use and abuse...

OBJECTIVE: Infants with "single ventricle" congenital heart disease are at high risk for sudden death following palliative surgical management. We developed a pilot telemedicine project to evaluate the feasibility of using Web-based daily reporting of clinical data with the goal of reducing unexpected admissions and sudden death. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: We enrolled 9 subjects (enrolled subjects [ES]) following surgical palliation over 12 months. Parents electronically transmitted ES daily weight and oxygen saturation and then completed an automated 10-point phone questionnaire on nutrition, activity, and distress...

Background. To identify, upon emergency department (ED) admission, predictors of unexpected death or unplanned intensive care/high dependency units (ICU/HDU) admission during the first 15 days of hospitalization on regular wards. Methods. Prospective cohort study in a medical-surgical adult ED in a teaching hospital, including consecutive patients hospitalized on regular wards after ED visit, and identification of predictors by logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards model. Results. Among 4,619 included patients, 77 (1...

STUDY OBJECTIVE: We measured the frequency of unanticipated death among patients discharged from the emergency department (ED) and reviewed these cases for patterns of potential preventable medical error. METHODS: This was a retrospective cohort of ED patients who were discharged to home from an urban tertiary-care facility after their evaluation, with subsequent case review. Subjects were aged 10 years and older, representing 387,334 visits among 186,859 individuals, February 1994 through November 2004...

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To determine the rate and cause of death of patients who were evaluated in the emergency department and discharged and how the cause of death related to the ED visit. DESIGN: Retrospective chart review of medical examiner cases from July 1, 1990, to June 30, 1991. SETTING: Urban county served by 13 hospital EDs with 383,416 visits in 1991. Eighty-five percent of these patients were discharged. PARTICIPANTS: Medical examiner cases of patients who had been evaluated and released from an ED within 8 days prior to death...

Emergency physicians frequently face death, yet many are unprepared to deal with the family survivors of a patient who has died unexpectedly. Without the benefit of establishing prior rapport with the family, the emergency physician must anticipate the family's grief response so that he or she can intervene to avoid an unnecessarily prolonged or morbid grief reaction. Factors predisposing to a pathologic grief response in the death of a spouse or of an infant or child must be recognized, and the physician's power to assuage survivor guilt should be used...