24 hours - Life in the E.R.: A state-wide data linkage analysis of in-patients with prolonged emergency department length of stay in New South Wales, Australia.

OBJECTIVE: Describe the characteristics and predictors of mortality for patients who spend more than 24 h in the ED waiting for an in-patient bed and compare baseline clinical and demographic characteristics between tertiary and non-tertiary hospitals. METHODS: This was a state-wide analysis data linkage analysis of adult (age >16 years) ED presentations across New South Wales from 2019 to 2020. Cases were included if their mode of separation from ED indicated admission to an in-patient unit including critical care ward and their ED length of stay was greater than or equal to 24 h. Cases were categorised by service-related groups based on principle diagnosis. RESULTS: A total of 26 854 eligible cases were identified. The most common diagnosis groups were psychiatry, cardiology and respiratory. The odds ratio (OR) for 30-day all-cause mortality in admitted patients with an ED length of stay greater than 24 h were highest in those aged >75 years (OR 15.18, 95% confidence interval [CI] 9.99-23.07, P < 0.001), oncology (OR 10.45, 95% CI 7.93-13.77, P < 0.001) and haematology patients (OR 2.95, 95% CI 2.01-4.33, P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Interventions and models of care to address ED access block need to focus on mental health patients, older patients particularly those with cardiorespiratory illness and oncology and haematology patients for whom risk of mortality is disproportionately higher.

Does volume or occupancy influence emergency access block? A multivariate time series analysis from a single emergency department in Sydney, Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic.

OBJECTIVE: The study aims to determine whether ED presentation volume or hospital occupancy had a greater impact on ED performance before and during the COVID-19 health response at a tertiary referral hospital in Sydney, Australia. METHODS: Single centre time series analysis using routinely collected hospital and ED data from January 2019 to September 2020. The primary outcome was ED access block measured by emergency treatment performance (ETP; i.e. percentage of patients who were discharged or transferred to a ward from ED within 4 h of ED arrival time). Secondary outcomes were hospital occupancy, elective theatre cases and ambulance ramping. Multivariate time series analysis was performed using vector autoregression, to model effects of changes in various endogenous and correlated variables on ETP. RESULTS: There was an increase in ETP, drop in ED presentations and decrease in hospital occupancy between April and June 2020. Elective surgery and hospital occupancy had significant effects up to 2 days prior on ETP, while there were no significant effects of either ED or ambulance presentations on ETP. Hospital occupancy itself increased with ED presentations after 2-4 days and decreased with elective surgery after 1 day. Shocks (a one standard deviation increase) in hospital occupancy had a peak impact nearly two times greater compared to ED presentations (-1.43, 95% confidence interval -1.92, -0.93 vs -0.73, 95% confidence interval -1.21, -0.25). CONCLUSION: The main determinants of the reduction of ED overcrowding and access block during the pandemic were associated with reductions in hospital occupancy and elective surgery levels, and more research is required to assess more complex associations beyond the scope of this manuscript.

Chronic malnutrition may in fact be an acute emergency.

BACKGROUND: Reintroduction of nutrition to the chronically starved patient presents a constellation of metabolic challenges termed "refeeding syndrome." The consequences of this syndrome--principally hypophosphatemia--may be life threatening. Although previously described in the nutritional literature, little information exists on this syndrome written from the perspective of the emergency physician. OBJECTIVES: To promote the early use of prophylactic electrolyte replacement in patients at risk of refeeding syndrome. CASE REPORT: We present the case of a 32-year-old woman with self-inflicted starvation who developed severe hypophosphatemia, hypocalcemia, and hypomagnesemia due to unintended refeeding in the emergency department (ED). CONCLUSIONS: The acute complications of refeeding syndrome may present during a patient's stay in the ED or during the transition from the ED to a critical care area, and thus this syndrome deserves consideration from the moment a starved patient presents to our triage desks.