Infectious disease
Mojtaba Miladinia; Farhad Abolnezhadian; Joachim G. Voss; Kourosh Zarea; Naser Hatamzadeh; Mandana Ghanavati
Volume 8, Issue 2 , July 2022, , Pages 90-94
Abstract
Objective: Final patient triage determines which patients can be home-isolated andwhich patients require hospitalization on the basis to predict the patient’s prognosismost accurately. Final triage is an important link in the clinical management chain of thecoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, ...
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Objective: Final patient triage determines which patients can be home-isolated andwhich patients require hospitalization on the basis to predict the patient’s prognosismost accurately. Final triage is an important link in the clinical management chain of thecoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and a comprehensive review of variouspatient triage methods is very important to guide decision making and triage efficiency.Decision by clinicians about hospitalization or home-discharge is one of the main challengesin places with limited hospital facilities compared to the high volume of COVID-19 patients.This review was designed to guide clinicians on how to address this challenge.Methods: In this mini review we searched scientific databases to obtain the final triagemethods of COVID-19 patients and the important criteria in each method. In order toconducted searches a period from December 2019 to July 2020 was considered. All searcheswere done in electronic databases and search engines.Results: Findings revealed four current methods for final triage (decision-making regardinghome-isolation or hospitalization of COVID-19 patients). These methods included 1)demographic and background information, 2) clinical information, 3) laboratory indicatorsand 4) initial chest CT-scan. Each of the aforementioned methods encompassed significantcriteria according to which decisions on the patient’s prognosis and final triage were made.Finally, by evaluating each final triage method, we found that each method had somelimitations.Conclusion: An effective and quick final triage requires simultaneous complementary useof all four methods to compensate for each other’s weaknesses and add to each other’sstrengths. It is therefore suggested to assure that clinicians are trained in all four COVID-19patient’s triage methods and their useful criteria in order to achieve evidence-basedperformance for better triage (decision between home-isolation versus hospitalization).
Emergency medicine
Mojtaba Miladinia; Elham Mousavi Nouri
Volume 8, Issue 1 , January 2022, , Pages 1-2
Abstract
Medication errors (MEs) are considered the most common medical errors and as one of the major challenges threatening the health system, which can be also reduced. MEs threaten patients' safety and may increase the length of hospital stay, lead to unexpected complications, mortality and side costs. In ...
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Medication errors (MEs) are considered the most common medical errors and as one of the major challenges threatening the health system, which can be also reduced. MEs threaten patients' safety and may increase the length of hospital stay, lead to unexpected complications, mortality and side costs. In 2017, the World Health Organization launched Medication without Harm to reduce severe avoidable medication-related damage by 50%, globally in the next 5 years. Emergency Departments (EDs) are stressful care environments which making EDs more prone to MEs. Therefore, EDs need to be seriously considered to reduce MEs and increase patients' safety. In this regard, it is of great significance to know about the most common stage of error in pharmacotherapy, the most common type of medication error and the most common causes of MEs in the emergency department practice setting. in conclusion, the most common types of MEs in EDs include drug omission error, wrong dose and strong infusion rate. In addition, the administration and prescribing are the most common stages of MEs in EDs. Also, the most common causes of MEs in EDs in Iran include nursing shortage (fatigue) and poor medication knowledge .