What does a crowded emergency department feel like to patients and their families? Liz Crowe reviews a small qualitative interview study exploring loss of autonomy, unmet expectations and vulnerability, then considers practical ways to improve communication, comfort and attention to basic needs.
Patient experience in the Emergency Department Read More
Notes from the RACE session at RCEM CPD 2024 explore the history of race and medicine, differential attainment and the work of challenging inequality. The report brings together the speakers’ perspectives, practical actions and further reading.
R-A-C-E session at RCEM CPD conference Read More
A 2022 journal club on the association between delays to hospital admission from the emergency department and 30-day mortality. The review examines a large English dataset, unmeasured illness severity and the limits of drawing causal conclusions from observational evidence.
JC: Emergency Department Delays and Mortality Read More
How can hospitals learn from a major incident while protecting those affected? This May 2021 post introduces the published hospital data from the Manchester Arena bombing, explaining the ethical challenges of reporting identifiable events and the development of a dedicated trauma-registry module.
Manchester Arena Bombing data now published in EMJ. St Emlyn’s Read More
What should emergency care performance measures tell us about patients’ experience and safety? Craig Ferguson examines the standards proposed in England in 2021, the strengths and weaknesses of the four-hour target, and why changes to measurement need evidence as well as good intentions.
New Clinical Standards for Emergency Care Read More
How can a hospital improve patient flow when beds, staff and resources are stretched? This appraisal examines Yeovil’s whole-hospital design science project, including shared goals, multidisciplinary routines and reported improvements in flow, while considering how the approach might translate to other hospitals.
JC: Improving patient flow Read More
In this March 2020 podcast, Roberto Cosentini shares experiences from Bergamo during Italy’s first COVID-19 surge. The accompanying notes highlight preparation, staff training, patient flow and psychological support, capturing lessons being shared while other emergency departments were still preparing for their first wave.
Podcast – Covid-19 in Italy with Roberto Cosentini Read More
Does knowing that a patient died change how we judge their earlier care? This appraisal examines a study in which clinicians rated the same cases with different outcomes, then considers what hindsight bias means for reflection, feedback and fair discussion of difficult emergency medicine cases.
Hindsight bias in Emergency Medicine Read More
