Influenza and RSV incidence during COVID-19 pandemic—an observational study from in-hospital point-of-care testing

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has forced the implementation of unprecedented public health measures strategies which might also have a significant impact on the spreading of other viral pathogens such as influenza and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) . The present study compares the incidences of the most relevant respiratory viruses before and during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in emergency room patients. We analyzed the results of in total 14,946 polymerase chain reaction point-of-care tests (POCT-PCR) for Influenza A, Influenza B, RSV and SARS-CoV-2 in an adult and a pediatric emergency room between December 1, 2018 and March 31, 2021. Despite a fivefold increase in the number of tests performed, the positivity rate for Influenza A dropped from 19.32% (165 positives of 854 tests in 2018/19), 14.57% (149 positives of 1023 in 2019–20) to 0% (0 positives of 4915 tests) in 2020/21. In analogy, the positivity rate for Influenza B and RSV dropped from 0.35 to 1.47%, respectively, 10.65–21.08% to 0% for both in 2020/21. The positivity rate for SARS-CoV2 reached 9.74% (110 of 1129 tests performed) during the so-called second wave in December 2020. Compared to the two previous years, seasonal influenza and RSV incidence was eliminated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Corona-related measures and human behavior patterns could lead to a significant decline or even complete suppression of other respiratory viruses such as influenza and RSV.

The Role of Emergency Nurses in Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) of Cardiac Arrest Patients: A Literature Review

Cardiac arrest can occur anywhere in the hospital area, whether it is in the emergency room, patients who are already in care, outpatients, the patient's family, visitors, or the community of the hospital at work. The literature of the review aims to determine the role of emergency nurses in the administration of pulmonary heart resuscitation in cardiac arrest patients. Literature review through several stages, namely making questions, identification, eligibility, selection of article inclusion, and screening. The Selection Process is listed in the framework of the review literature and obtained the results of article 8 articles. The data showed similar results related to the role of nurses in assisting cardiac arrest patients in hospitals. The results of the article in the review focused on the role of nurses in providing life support to patients with cardiac arrest, almost from all articles reviewed discussing the knowledge, experience, and skills of nurses in providing CPR. The role of nurses in the emergency room in providing life support to cardiac arrest patients is to improve the knowledge, experience, and skills in performing CPR. One way to improve the knowledge, experience, and skills of nurses in providing CPR to cardiac arrest patients is to participate in various training such as Basic Trauma Cardiac Life Support (BTCLS) or Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ATCLS).

Evaluasi Mutu Pelayanan Kesehatan Unit Gawat Darurat

The emergency service indicator is one of the determinants of hospital quality in terms of medical, economic, and management aspects. Every hospital is required to have an emergency service facility that serves 24 hours. The general objective of this study is to calculate and analyze the emergency room service visits per triwulan at Karanganyar District Hospital. The type of research used in this research is descriptive, with observation and interview methods, through a retrospective approach. The sample in this study is the same as the population, namely the results of monthly recapitulation of emergency patient visits. The results showed that in Karanganyar District Hospital based on four indicators, the average emergency room patients tended to increase per day, the ratio of emergency patients to nurses tended to increase, the ratio of patients referred to the number of emergency patients decreased, and the average patient died in the emergency department. tends to decline. The conclusion of this study is that all indicators of emergency services at Karanganyar District Hospital are ideal. So the authors suggest that RSUD Karanganyar Regency routinely makes reports based on indicators of emergency patient visits as material for evaluating and planning the quality of the hospital.

Segmental Signs and Spontaneous Pain in Acute Visceral Disease: An observational study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND The differential diagnosis of acute visceral diseases is a challenging clinical problem. The older literature suggests that patients with acute visceral problems show segmental signs, such as hyperalgesia, skin resistance, or muscular defence, whose lateralization and segmental distribution may be used for differential diagnosis. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to investigate the lateralization and segmental distribution of spontaneous pain and segmental signs in acute visceral diseases using digital pain drawing technology. METHODS We recruited 208 emergency room patients that were presenting for acute medical problems. All patients underwent a structured 10-minute bodily examination to test for various segmental signs and were asked for spontaneous pain and segmental symptoms, such as nausea, meteorism, and urinary retention. We collected all findings as digital drawings on a tablet-PC. After the final diagnosis, patients were divided into groups according to the organ affected. Using statistical image analysis, we calculated average distributions of pain and segmental signs for the heart, lungs, stomach, liver/gallbladder, and kidneys/ureters analyzing their segmental distribution and lateralization. RESULTS 85 of 110 patients with a single-organ problem reported pain, while 81 had at least one segmental sign, the most frequent being hyperalgesia (n=46), and muscle resistance (n=39). While the pain was distributed along the body midline, segmental signs for the heart, stomach and liver/gallbladder appeared mostly ipsilateral to the affected organ. An unexpectedly high number of patients (n=37) further showed ipsilateral mydriasis. CONCLUSIONS The present study underlines the usefulness of including digitally-recorded segmental signs in the bodily examination of patients with acute medical problems.

Laboratory markers included in the Corona Score can identify false negative results on COVID-19 RT-PCR in the emergency room

After December 2019 outbreak in China, the novel Coronavirus infection (COVID-19) has very quickly overflowed worldwide. Infection causes a clinical syndrome encompassing a wide range of clinical features, from asymptomatic or oligosymptomatic course to acute respiratory distress and death. In a very recent work we preliminarily observed that several laboratory tests have been shown as characteristically altered in COVID-19. We aimed to use the Corona score, a validated point-based algorithm to predict the likelihood of COVID-19 infection in patients presenting at the Emergency rooms. This approach combines chest images-relative score and several laboratory parameters to classify emergency room patients. Corona score accuracy was satisfactory, increasing the detection of positive patients’ rate.

Segmental Signs and Spontaneous Pain in Acute Visceral Disease - Lateralization and Bodily Patterns

The differential diagnosis of acute visceral diseases is a challenging clinical problem. The older literature suggests that patients with acute visceral problems show segmental signs, such as hyperalgesia, skin resistance, or muscular defence, whose lateralization and segmental distribution may be used for differential diagnosis. This study aimed to investigate the lateralization and segmental distribution of spontaneous pain and segmental signs in acute visceral diseases. We recruited 208 emergency room patients that were presenting for acute medical problems. All patients underwent a structured 10-minute bodily examination to test for various segmental signs and were asked for spontaneous pain and segmental symptoms, such as nausea, meteorism, and urinary retention. We collected all findings as digital drawings on a tablet-PC. After the final diagnosis, patients were divided into groups according to the organ affected. Using statistical image analysis, we calculated average distributions of pain and segmental signs for the heart, lungs, stomach, liver/gallbladder, and kidneys/ureters analyzing their segmental distribution and lateralization. 85 of 110 patients with a single-organ problem reported pain, while 81 had at least one segmental sign, the most frequent being hyperalgesia (n=46), and muscle resistance (n=39). While the pain was distributed along the body midline, segmental signs for the heart, stomach and liver/gallbladder appeared mostly ipsilateral to the affected organ. An unexpectedly high number of patients (n=37) further showed ipsilateral mydriasis. The present study underlines the usefulness of including segmental signs in the bodily examination of patients with acute medical problems.

P0646PREDICTABLE CAPACITY OF ACUTE KIDNEY INJURY OF NEPHROCHECK TEST IN EMERGENCY ROOM PATIENTS

Background and Aims Acute kidney injury (AKI) is increasingly prevalent and it is associated to increased hospital stay and costs, higher risk of developing a chronic kidney disease, and also major morbidity and mortality. Prediction tools may identify patients at high risk of AKI, allowing early intervention. Nephrocheck quantifies biomarkers of AKI (TIMP-2 and IGFBP-7), providing results within 20 minutes. This may allow stratification of the risk of developing an AKI in the next 12 hours in critically cardiovascular or respiratory ill patients and therefore implement preventive measures. We aimed to assess Nephrocheck performance to predict AKI development within 12 hours to 5 days in incident Emergency Room (ER) patients. Method Prospective observational study of 52 incident ER patients. Data were collected from April 2017 to November 2018. Inclusion criteria: sepsis of any origin, or cardiopulmonary insufficiency without AKI at baseline. Nephrochek was performed at baseline, patients were stratified into low (Nephrocheck test < 0.3), moderate (Nephrocheck between 0.3-2) and high risk (Nephrocheck >2) of AKI and occurrence of AKI was assessed (diagnosed as an increase of 0.3 mg/dl of serum creatinine) at 12, 24, 48 h and 5 days. Results Mean age as 70±13 years, 22/52 (43%) were women, risk factors included hypertension (54%), DM (29%), Cirrhosis: 2/52 (4%), heat failure (27%), prior CKD (12%), nephrotoxic use (38%). 18/52 (35%) of patients were Nephrocheck low risk, 21/52 (40%) were intermediate risk and 13/52 (25%) were high risk. AKI developed in 7/18 (39%), 3/21 (14%) and 3/13 (23%) of low, intermediate and high risk, respectively. When comparing patients who developed AKI with those who did not, those who developed AKI had been exposed more frequently to nephrotoxins and had lower urinary osmolarity and higher MAP (Table 1). However, a high risk Nephrocheck score identified patients with significantly higher urine osmolality (672±139 vs 387±172 mOsm/L, P=0.005) and lower MAP (76.7 ± 18.4 vs 101.62±22.7 mmHg; P=0.002). Conclusion LIMITATIONS: knowledge of Nephrocheck results may have changed patient care. CONCLUSIONS: A high risk Nephrocheck score was not associated with a higher risk of AKI in a ER setting. More nephrotoxins were used in the AKI group. Presumabily, these were discontinued in the ER, thus lowering AKI risk. By contrast, a past history of nephrotoxin use and lower urine osmolarity were associated with a higher incidence of AKI.