Emergency Medicine News and Research

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Discharged, dismissed: ERs often miss chance to set overdose survivors on ‘better path’

The last time heroin landed Marissa Angerer in a Midland, Texas, emergency room — naked and unconscious — was May 2016. But that wasn't her first drug-related interaction with the health system.

15 Feb 2019

New injury documentation tool may provide better evidence for elder abuse cases

An estimated 10 percent of older adults experience some form of abuse each year. However, the link between injuries and possible elder abuse may take months or years to establish and is often difficult to investigate due to poor documentation during prior medical visits.

15 Feb 2019

Verbal autopsy interviews capture more accurate data about causes of deaths in Uganda

Training community health workers to perform verbal autopsy interviews captured more accurate and complete data about the number and causes of deaths in a rural sub-county of Uganda than current health facility-dependent surveillance methods, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and their in-country partners.

14 Feb 2019

New Australian initiative helps emergency clinicians to improve patient care

An Australian initiative is successfully helping emergency doctors and nurses develop better treatments, diagnostics and services for improving patient care.

13 Feb 2019

Study finds no link between access to federally qualified health centers and ED visits

There is no association between access to federally qualified health centers and emergency department visits for either uninsured or Medicaid-insured patients. That is the conclusion of a study to be published in the February 2019 issue of Academic Emergency Medicine, a journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.

12 Feb 2019

Rutgers study explores facial trauma litigation

Southern courts favor physicians in malpractice lawsuits over facial trauma treatment, while courts in the Midwest favor patients, according to a Rutgers study.

11 Feb 2019

Targeting aging process itself can lead to better and more effective interventions

Medical care for older adults has long focused on preventing and treating chronic diseases and the conditions that come with them.

11 Feb 2019

Scooter madness in Austin puts safety concerns in high gear

University of Texas star baseball shortstop David Hamilton hit a pothole riding an electric scooter, tearing his Achilles tendon and requiring surgery. He'll miss the season. Cristal Glangchai, the CEO for a nonprofit, hit a rock riding her scooter, landing her on the pavement just blocks from home.

6 Feb 2019

Ideas to curb surprise medical bills percolate with rare bipartisan push

Surrounded by patients who told horror stories of being stuck with hefty bills, President Donald Trump recently waded into a widespread health care problem for which almost everyone — even those with insurance — is at risk: surprise medical billing.

5 Feb 2019

New online software package trains health care workers in safe Ebola disease response

In a world where we can travel the globe by jet, diseases that were once thought to plague faraway places can now strike close to home.

4 Feb 2019

Understanding the defense mechanism of NETs could lead to better antibiotics

Experiencing a bacterial infection? You're generally prescribed antibiotics by your doctor. But how exactly do those antibiotics and your white blood cells work in tandem to improve your infection?

1 Feb 2019

Study: Freestanding emergency departments charge more than urgent care centers

Freestanding emergency departments may charge more than urgent care centers (UCCs) to provide care for fewer patients who have similar characteristics and conditions, according to a study released in the Journal of Emergency Medicine.

29 Jan 2019

Researchers highlight the need for pediatricians to discuss firearm safety

Paradoxically, as overall firearm ownership decreased in U.S. households with young children from 1976 to 2016, the proportion of these families who owned handguns increased.

28 Jan 2019

Opioid overdose patients can be safely discharged an hour after administration of naloxone

Suspected opioid overdose patients treated with naloxone are safe for discharge from the emergency department after one hour.

23 Jan 2019

Integrated care to women with PMADs offered at several levels

Over the past several decades, it's become increasingly recognized that perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, including postpartum depression, are more than just "baby blues."

17 Jan 2019

Meth’s resurgence spotlights lack of meds to combat the addiction

In 2016, news reports warned the public of an opioid epidemic gripping the nation. But Madeline Vaughn, then a lead clinical intake coordinator at the Houston-based addiction treatment organization Council on Recovery, sensed something different was going on with the patients she checked in from the street.

14 Jan 2019

Opiod prescriptions for pet dogs misused by their masters

A new study has shown that Americans are probably increasingly consuming the opioid analgesics that are prescribed for their pet dogs. The research shows that one of the reasons behind rise in the opioid epidemic could be the rise in prescription opioids for dogs.

14 Jan 2019

Misused veterinary prescriptions could contribute to the ongoing opioid epidemic

The increase in opioid prescriptions for people over the past decade may have been paralleled by an increase in opioid prescriptions for pets, according to a study from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine and the School of Veterinary Medicine.

11 Jan 2019

Emergency medical responders confront racial bias

A recent study out of Oregon suggests emergency medical responders — EMTs and paramedics — may be treating minority patients differently from the way they treat white patients.