Search results for "Medical emergency"

Comparison of rehospitalization rates in France and the United States

2014

Objective To compare rates of 30-day all-cause rehospitalization in France and the US among patients aged 65 years and older and explain any difference between the countries. Methods To calculate rehospitalization rates in France, we use an individual identifying variable in the national hospital administrative dataset to track unique individuals aged 65 years or more hospitalized in France in 2010. To calculate the proportion of rehospitalized patients (65+) who received outpatient visits between the time of initial discharge and rehospitalization, we linked the hospital database with a database that includes all medical and surgical admissions. We used step by step regression models to pr…

The EU project "United4Health": Results and experiences from automatic health status assessment in a Norwegian telemedicine trial system.

2017

Introduction Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease require help in daily life situations to increase their individual perception of security, especially under worsened medical conditions. Unnecessary hospital (re-)admissions and home visits by doctors or nurses shall be avoided. This study evaluates the results from a two-year telemedicine field trial for automatic health status assessment based on remote monitoring and analysis of a long time series of vital signs data from patients at home over periods of weeks or months. Methods After discharge from hospital treatment for acute exacerbations, 94 patients were recruited for follow-up by the trial system. The system supported…

Telemedicine versus WhatsApp

2015

Intensive care unit strain should not rush physicians into making inappropriate decisions, but merely reduce the time to the right decisions being ma…

2016

The effect of capacity strain in an ICU on the timing of end-of-life decision-making is unknown. We sought to determine how changes in strain impact timing of new do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders and of death.Retrospective cohort study of 9891 patients dying in the hospital following an ICU stay ≥72 h in Project IMPACT, 2001-2008. We examined the effect of ICU capacity strain (measured by standardized census, proportion of new admissions, and average patient acuity) on time to initiation of DNR orders and time to death for all ICU decedents using fixed-effects linear regression.Increases in strain were associated with shorter time to DNR for patients with limitations in therapy (predicted ti…

Testing physiologic monitor alarm customization software to reduce alarm rates and improve nurses’ experience of alarms in a medical intensive care u…

2018

BACKGROUND:Clinicians in intensive care units experience alarm fatigue related to frequent false and non-actionable alarms produced by physiologic monitors. To reduce non-actionable alarms, alarm settings may need to be customized for individual patients; however, nurses may not customize alarms because of competing demands and alarm fatigue. OBJECTIVE:To examine the effectiveness and acceptance of physiologic monitor software to support customization of alarms. METHODS:This pre/post intervention study was conducted in a 56-bed medical intensive care unit. IntelliVue® Alarm Advisor customization support software for alarm limit violations was installed on all monitors and education on its u…

How do cancer patients receiving palliative care at home die? A descriptive study

2011

Abstract Context Data regarding the circumstances of the process of death of terminally ill patients followed at home are lacking. Objectives The aim of this study was to describe the characteristics and assess the circumstances of the process of death of terminally ill patients followed at home. Methods This was a prospective survey to assess the dying process of advanced cancer patients followed at home. Within a week after death, the principal caregiver was interviewed. Information from the palliative home care team and the caregiver about expectation of death, time of death, professional and nonprofessional people present at time of death, emergency admission to hospital, and administra…

Emergencies in patients with advanced cancer followed at home.

2012

Abstract CONTEXT: Patients with advanced cancer stay at home for most of their time, and acute problems may occur during home care. Caregivers may call medical services for an emergency, which can result in patients being admitted to the hospital. No data exist on emergencies in patients followed by a home care team. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this multicenter prospective study was to assess the frequency, reasons for, and subsequent course of emergency calls for patients followed at home by a palliative care team. METHODS: A consecutive sample of patients admitted to home care programs was surveyed for a period of seven months. Epidemiological data, and characteristics of emergency calls and o…

Smoking may increase the risk of influenza hospitalization and reduce influenza vaccine effectiveness in the elderly.

2017

Background Through its effects on the immune system, smoking may facilitate influenza virus infection, its severity and its most frequent complications. The objective was to investigate the smoking history as a risk factor for influenza hospitalization and influenza vaccine effectiveness in elderly smokers/ex-smokers and non-smokers. Methods We carried out a multicenter case-control study in the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 influenza seasons. Cases aged ≥65 years and age-, sex-matched controls were selected from 20 Spanish hospitals. We collected epidemiological variables, comorbidities, vaccination history and the smoking history. The risk of hospitalization due to smoking (current smokers and …

Potential Risk of Medication Discrepancies and Reconciliation Errors at Admission and Discharge from an Inpatient Medical Service

2010

Background: Medication discrepancies, defined as unexplained variations among drug regimens at care transitions, are common. Some are unintended and cause reconciliation errors that are potentially detrimental for patients. Objective: To determine the prevalence of medication discrepancies and reconciliation errors at admission and discharge in hospitalized patients and explore risk factors for reconciliation errors and their potential clinical impact. Methods: An observational prospective study was conducted at a general teaching hospital. Patients who were admitted to the internal medicine service and were receiving chronic preadmission treatment were included in the study. Preadmission t…

A Hospital-Based and a Population-Based Stroke Registry Yield Different Results: The Experience in Dijon, France

1996

The aim of this study was to demonstrate the different results obtained from a population-based and a hospital-based stroke study in the same city.Between January 1 and December 31, 1993, we collected information on all of the first strokes in the population of the city of Dijon, in conjunction with the Dijon Stroke Registry, collecting the first-ever strokes from patients living in Dijon as well as on all the first strokes in residents and nonresidents of Dijon who were treated at Dijon University Hospital. Demographic details, medical history, vascular risk factors, stroke subtype, as diagnosed by CT scan, and mortality rates were compared between the strokes observed in the population of…