Archive for month: August, 2020

A Henry Ford Hospital study found that simulation training improved the critical decision-making skills of medical residents performing actual resuscitations in the Emergency Department.
Researchers say the residents performed better in four key skill areas after receiving the simulation training: leadership, problem solving, situational awareness and communication. Their overall performance also sharpened.
While many studies have shown the benefits of simulation training for honing the skill level of medical professionals, Henry Ford

A new electronic medical record tool that tallies patients’ previous radiation exposure from CT scans helps reduce potentially unnecessary use of the tests among emergency room patients with abdominal pain, according to a study from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The new study shows that when the tool is in use, patients are 10 percent less likely to undergo a CT scan, without increasing the number of patients who are admitted to the hospital.
Abdominal pain is the most common reason why people seek care in emergency rooms in the United States, accounting for 10 million visits each year. But the symptoms may be caused by myriad problems, from those that can be fixed with a single dose of an over-the-counter drug to those that could prove life-threatening within hours: from a bout of GI distress to an ectopic pregnancy; from constipation to an appendix about to burst; from a hernia to signs of a chronic condition like Crohn’s disease.
This complex diagnostic face-off plays a huge role in why emergency physicians tend to lean heavily on tests like CT scans, even though they expose patients to radiation and there are few clear guidelines on which patients should get them. Since the mid-1990s, the use of CT scans to diagnose ER patients has surged, increasing ten-fold. Today, 14 percent of all emergency room patients get scanned

Using a concentrated, highly targeted dose of radiation to the breast has equally good results as irradiating the whole area, with no adverse effects on survival and a much better cosmetic outcome, Hungarian researchers have found. Reporting the ten-year results of a randomised trial, Professor Csaba Polg

PAL brings the healing power of music to premature infants.
Many premature babies enter the world with a mountain of challenges in front of them. Even after they overcome any life-threatening issues, they face ongoing, and typically unpleasant, medical procedures, long hospital stays and increased chances of chronic health issues throughout their lives.
To help address one of their biggest problems