Pain management in the emergency department: patterns of analgesic utilization
Child; Female; Humans; Male; Patient Discharge; Adult; Age Factors; Hospitals; Emergency Service; Comparative Study; Pain/drug therapy; Analgesics/administration & dosage/therapeutic use; Hospital/statistics & numerical data; Academic Medical Centers/statistics & numerical data; Community/statistics & numerical data; Drug Utilization/statistics & numerical data
OBJECTIVE: To compare the use of analgesia in children to adults in 3 different emergency department (ED) settings. METHODS: Forty adult and 40 pediatric ED charts were randomly selected for review at each of 3 institutions: an academic medical center with separate pediatric and adult EDs (SEP ED), a community academic medical center with a combined adult and pediatric ED (COMB ED), and a community hospital with a combined ED (COMTY ED). All patients presenting to the EDs from July 1993 to June 1994 within 12 hours of an isolated long bone fracture were eligible for inclusion. Data were collected on demographics, training of providers, analgesic use and dosing in the ED and on discharge, and time from triage to analgesic use. RESULTS: The mean pediatric and adult ages were 8.7 and 38.3 years, respectively. Overall, 152/240 (63%) patients received some form of analgesia in the ED, with the COMTY ED (41/80; 51%) offering significantly less analgesia than the COMB ED (58/80; 73%), but not the SEP ED (53/80; 66%). Pediatric patients (64/120; 53%) received significantly less analgesia in the ED than adult patients (88/120; 73%). This difference was significant at the COMB ED (pediatric 23/40; 58% vs adult 35/40; 88%) and COMTY ED (pediatric 15/40; 38% vs adult 26/40; 65%), but not at the SEP ED (pediatric 26/40; 65% vs adult 27/40; 68%). 195/240 (81%) patients received discharge pain medication. There were no differences between pediatric (93/120; 78%) and adult (102/120; 85%) discharge analgesic prescribing practices. Although there was no difference in appropriateness of analgesic doses in the ED, pediatric patients (20/74; 27%) were more likely than adult patients (3/88; 3%) to receive inadequate doses of analgesics on discharge from the ED. CONCLUSIONS: ED analgesia continues to be used less frequently in the pediatric compared with the adult population. Inadequate dosing of discharge analgesic medication in children is a significant problem. Patterns of analgesic utilization may differ in different types of ED settings.
1997
Petrack EM; Christopher NC; Kriwinsky J
Pediatrics
1997
Article information provided for research and reference use only. PedPalASCNET does not hold any rights over the resource listed here. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).
Journal Article
<a href="http://doi.org/10.1542/peds.99.5.711" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">10.1542/peds.99.5.711</a>
Validation of a decision rule identifying febrile young girls at high risk for urinary tract infection
Child; Female; Humans; Decision Support Techniques; Risk Factors; European Continental Ancestry Group; Sensitivity and Specificity; Hospitals; Case-Control Studies; Emergency Service; Preschool; P.H.S.; Research Support; U.S. Gov't; infant; retrospective studies; Pediatric/statistics & numerical data; Pennsylvania/epidemiology; ROC Curve; Area Under Curve; Bacteriuria/diagnosis/microbiology; Colony Count; False Positive Reactions; Fever/etiology; Hospital/statistics & numerical data; Microbial; Urinary Tract Infections/diagnosis/epidemiology
OBJECTIVE: To validate a previously published clinical decision rule to predict risk of urinary tract infection in febrile young girls. METHODS: We performed a retrospective case-control study at a children's hospital emergency department in a different city than that in which the original derivation study took place. Girls younger than 2 years in whom urinalysis and urine culture were performed for evaluation of fever were eligible. Cases consisted of all patients with a positive urine culture result, defined as 50,000 or more colony-forming units per milliliter of a urinary tract pathogen (n = 98). A random sample of patients with a negative urine culture result (n = 114) was also selected as controls. The clinical prediction rule included five risk factors: age younger than 12 months, white race, temperature of 39.0 degrees C or higher, absence of any other potential source of fever, and fever for 2 days or more. The sensitivity and false-positive rate of this rule were calculated at different cutoff values. RESULTS: The overall discriminative ability of the rule, as indicated by the area under the receiver-operator characteristic curve (AUC), was similar in this validation sample (AUC = 0.72) to that in the original study (AUC = 0.76). However, in the validation sample, the presence of three or more risk factors (rather than two or more as in the original study) appeared to be the optimum cutoff to define a positive rule, which results in an indication for obtaining further diagnostic testing (sensitivity, 88% [95% CI, 79-94%]; false-positive rate, 70% [95% CI, 61-79%]). CONCLUSION: A simple clinical decision rule previously developed to predict urinary tract infection based on five risk factors performs similarly in a different patient population.
2003
Gorelick MH; Hoberman A; Kearney D; Wald E; Shaw KN
Pediatric Emergency Care
2003
Article information provided for research and reference use only. PedPalASCNET does not hold any rights over the resource listed here. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).
Journal Article
<a href="http://doi.org/10.1097/01.pec.0000081238.98249.40" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">10.1097/01.pec.0000081238.98249.40</a>
Age limits and transition of health care in pediatric emergency medicine
Child; Female; Humans; Male; United States; Pregnancy; Pediatrics; Adult; Data Collection; Age Factors; Cystic Fibrosis; Hospitals; Emergency Medicine; Organizational Policy; Emergency Service; adolescent; Adolescent Transitions; Pregnancy in Adolescence; Pediatric/statistics & numerical data; Hospital/statistics & numerical data; General/statistics & numerical data
OBJECTIVE: To describe the practice reported by pediatric emergency department (PED) medical directors regarding age limits and transition of health care in their emergency departments and institutions. METHODS: A 28-question survey was sent by e-mail to 116 PED medical directors. Descriptive statistics were used to report results; chi tests were used for comparing categorical data. RESULTS: The survey was completed by 73 PED medical directors (63%). Age-limit policies were present in 58 (79%) of the PEDs, and 56 reported a specific age. The 18th and 21st birthdays were the most common specific ages cited. Thirty-six PEDs (64%) had an age limit of younger than 21 years. Pediatric emergency departments with age limits of 21 years or older versus younger than 21 years had a significantly higher rate of being associated with freestanding children's hospitals (P = 0.037). Appropriate exceptions to the age-limit policy included patients both over and under the age limit. The most common overage limit exception was cystic fibrosis, and the most common underage limit exception was teenage pregnancy. Thirteen PED medical directors (18%) were aware of a transition-of-care (pediatric to adult care provider) policy or work group at their institution, and 47 (64%) thought that such a work group would be valuable to addressing transition-of-care issues. CONCLUSION: In pediatric emergency medicine, the age of transition from pediatric to adult emergency care providers is variable both between and within institutions. Most PEDs have age limits of younger than 21 years. Most PED medical directors support a multidisciplinary work group or committee as a method of addressing transition of care. Known barriers to transition of care previously reported in the literature are reviewed.
2007
Dobson JV; Bryce L; Glaeser PW; Losek JD
Pediatric Emergency Care
2007
Article information provided for research and reference use only. PedPalASCNET does not hold any rights over the resource listed here. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).
Journal Article
<a href="http://doi.org/10.1097/01.pec.0000248701.87916.05" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">10.1097/01.pec.0000248701.87916.05</a>