Article • Emergency care
Keep it simple and straightforward
Emergency medicine requires smooth, patient-oriented and perfectly timed cooperation of several clinical disciplines.
Emergency medicine
News • MEDICA 2015
Schiller: DEFIGARD Touch7
The latest member of SCHILLER’s rescue family is extremely compact and offers the latest defibrillation technology in combination with comprehensive monitoring functions. It is the first emergency monitor/defibrillator equipped with a touch screen, making it the most intuitive device on the market.
Arabs or Jews, children who need pain relief in the ER get it
Children with broken bones or joint dislocations in northern Israel emergency departments received equal pain treatment, regardless of their ethnicity or the ethnicity of the nurses who treated them, even during a period of armed conflict between the two ethnic groups.
News • Five ways to improve
Health information exchange in ERs
An emergency physician-led workgroup has published five primary and seven secondary recommendations about how to maximize the value of health information exchange (HIE) in emergency departments. The recommendations were published online Tuesday in Annals of Emergency Medicine.
Doctors protest over Australia’s “repressive legislation” on asylum seekers
In The BMJ this week, two doctors criticise Australia for passing legislation that may be used to silence doctors working with asylum seekers.
Article • Intensive Care
The 35th ISICEM
Held every year in March, for the past 35 years, the International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine has been organised by the Departments of Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine at Erasme University Hospital, Université Libre de Bruxelles, in association with the Belgian Society of Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (SIZ). For three and a half decades, the event’s main…
Sponsored • Critical care
European launch of in-line blood gas analyser
Sphere Medical, launches its in-line patient dedicated arterial blood gas analyser in Germany, Netherlands and Belgium at ISICEM 2015. The advanced Proxima System delivers true point-of-care testing (POCT) by enabling critical care staff to obtain frequent laboratory accurate blood gas measurements without leaving the patient’s bedside. This facilitates effective and timely clinical decisions…
Article • Treating Ebola
An isolation unit flying on 60-metre wings
The ‘Robert Koch’ plane for medical evacuations (MedEvac) is the winged equivalent of a German hospital isolation ward. Within it, medics with viral haemorrhagic fever while working on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, receive intensive medical care during any stages of the disease, while being evacuated. Report: Anja Behringer
News • Mobility
Faster First Aid for Catastrophe Victims
A new system aims to speed up the triage of victims during mass casualty incidents: Instead of colored paper tags, first responders use colored electronic wristbands. These serve to locate victims and transmit vital data to emergency response control centers. FIT also demonstrates an app for Android smartphones that lets victims buried alive under a collapsed building contact rescue teams even…
News • Communication
Communication is key to Emergency Department success
The high-risk, rapidly changing nature of hospital Emergency Departments creates an environment where stress levels and staff burnout rates are high, but researchers at St. Michael's Hospital have identified the secret sauce that helps many emergency clinicians flourish - communication.
Sponsored • Sonosite
SonoSite’s NanoMaxx® ideal for paediatric retrievals in remote areas
SonoSite’s NanoMaxx® ultrasound system is proving a key asset for ambulance and helicopter paediatric retrievals across Scotland, helping to ensure the safe transfer of patients from remote, rural sites.
Sponsored • SONOSITE
Point-of-care ultrasound – an essential tool for emergency medicine
Dr Rip Gangahar, Trauma Lead for the Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust and Chair of the International Federation for Emergency Medicine Ultrasound Group, discusses the past, present and future of ultrasound training for emergency medicine.
Contrast enhanced ultrasound
In the USA, some patients have bled to death while in the CT scanner because this type of examination takes too long for blunt abdominal trauma diagnosis. Report: Chrissanthi Nikolakudi
Article • Emergency Medicine
POC ultrasound takes to the skies
Given their quality, small size, portability and robustness, SonoSite point-of-care ultrasound systems play vital roles in hectic A&E and surgical departments, and also in monitoring patients in transit.
Disaster medicine is not for perfectionists
The Ebola epidemic in West Africa, war in Syria, typhoon in the Philippines – over and over, German doctors are among those deployed to help. We interviewed Dr Johannes Schad, Medical Director of the Foundation of the German Institute for Disaster Medicine, about his direct experiences on the ground at the worst of times. Interview: Sascha Keutel
News • Ebola
Lack of suitable resources limits Ebola diagnoses in West Africa
Poor logistics logistics and low trained staff numbers are two of the greatest limitations to providing a sufficient molecular diagnostic capacity for Ebola in West Africa, says Andrew S. Thompson, Ph.D., GlobalData’s Senior Analyst.
England prepares for Ebola
More than 750 British military personnel as well as RFA Argus – the country’s medical ship – have arrived in Sierra Leone, for front line duties in the battle against Ebola. In the meantime Britain tested its readiness for a possible Ebola virus epidemic. Report: Brenda Marsh
Trauma care: the alpha and omega in emergency
Recently, ways to improve trauma care, particularly the care of acutely injured victims of traffic accidents, was discussed by international experts gathered at the World Trauma Congress (held in Frankfurt/Main, Germany).
'Treat first what kills first'
There is room for worldwide improvement of trauma care, as Congress President Professor Ingo Marzi, Frankfurt/Main (Germany), emphasised.
CT is still the be all and end all
At this year’s meeting of the German Radiological Society (DRK), Dr Mathias Langer, Head of the Radiology Clinic at Freiburg University Hospital and the society’s 2013 President, assured EH that CT is still the be all and end all in trauma surgery.
Aggression in hospitals
A receptionist threatened with a butcher’s knife in Bourgoin-Jallieu (Isère); gunshots in an emergency unit in Delafontaine, at Saint-Denis, near Paris; a nurse wounded with a knife in a Marseille hospital – three separate incidents in just one week last August brought into sharpe focus what has become a worrying phenomenon.
Ultrasound steps up for emergencies
You never know what you’re going to see in the Emergency Department (ED); but, more and more the first evaluation of a trauma patient’s condition will be with ultrasound.
UK’s first Specialist Emergency Care Hospital takes shape
The UK’s first Specialist Emergency Care Hospital is on target to open for the first patients in 2015.
Apps for disaster planning and flu forecasting
Johns Hopkins scientists have developed three new Web-based software tools designed to help hospital emergency departments, first responder organizations and others model and prepare for major disasters, including flu outbreaks.
Point-care-testing in emergency departments
Over the past decade the use of point-of-care testing (POCT) in European and North American hospitals has steadily increased, stimulated by the objectives of accelerating diagnostic treatment, increasing efficiency and improving patient outcomes.
