OBJECTIVE Health care disparities have been described for children of limited English-proficient (LEP) families compared with children of English-proficient (EP) families. Poor communication with the medical team may contribute to these worse health outcomes. Previous studies exploring communication in the PICU have excluded LEP families. We aimed to understand communication experiences and preferences in the 3 primary communication settings in the PICU. We also explored LEP families’ views on interpreter use in the PICU. PATIENTS AND METHODS EP and Spanish-speaking LEP families of children admitted to the PICU of a large tertiary pediatric hospital completed surveys between 24 hours and 7 days of admission. RESULTS A total of 161 of 184 families were surveyed (88% response rate); 52 were LEP and 109 EP. LEP families were less likely to understand the material discussed on rounds (odds ratio [OR] 0.32, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.11–0.90), to report that PICU nurses spent enough time speaking with them (OR 0.15, 95% CI 0.05–0.41), and to report they could rely on their nurses for medical updates (OR 0.07, 95% CI 0.02–0.25) controlling for covariates, such as education, insurance type, presence of a chronic condition, PICU length of stay, and mortality index. LEP families reported 53% of physicians and 41% of nurses used an interpreter “often.” CONCLUSIONS Physician and nurse communication with LEP families is suboptimal. Communication with LEP families may be improved with regular use of interpreters and an increased awareness of the added barrier of language proficiency.

To date, the practice of global emergency medicine (GEM) has involved being “on the ground” supporting in‐country training of local learners, conducting research, and providing clinical care. This face‐to‐face interaction has been understood as critically important for developing partnerships and building trust. The COVID‐19 pandemic has brought significant uncertainty worldwide, including international travel restrictions of indeterminate permanence. Following the 2020 Society for Academic Emergency Medicine meeting, the Global Emergency Medicine Academy (GEMA) sought to enhance collective understanding of best practices in GEM training with a focus on multidirectional education and remote collaboration in the setting of COVID‐19. GEMA members led an initiative to outline thematic areas deemed most pertinent to the continued implementation of impactful GEM programming within the physical and technologic confines of a pandemic. Eighteen GEM practitioners were divided into four workgroups to focus on the following themes: advances in technology, valuation, climate impacts, skill translation, research/scholastic projects, and future challenges. Several opportunities were identified: broadened availability of technology such as video conferencing, Internet, and smartphones; online learning; reduced costs of cloud storage and printing; reduced carbon footprint; and strengthened local leadership. Skills and knowledge bases of GEM practitioners, including practicing in resource‐poor settings and allocation of scarce resources, are translatable domestically. The COVID‐19 pandemic has accelerated a paradigm shift in the practice of GEM, identifying a previously underrecognized potential to both strengthen partnerships and increase accessibility. This time of change has provided an opportunity to enhance multidirectional education and remote collaboration to improve global health equity.

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IntroductionHigh-income country (HIC) authors are disproportionately represented in authorship bylines compared with those affiliated with low and middle-income countries (LMICs) in global health research. An assessment of authorship representation in the global emergency medicine (GEM) literature is lacking but may inform equitable academic collaborations in this relatively new field.MethodsWe conducted a bibliometric analysis of original research articles reporting studies conducted in LMICs from the annual GEM Literature Review from 2016 to 2020. Data extracted included study topic, journal, study country(s) and region, country income classification, author order, country(s) of authors’ affiliations and funding sources. We compared the proportion of authors affiliated with each income bracket using Χ2 analysis. We conducted logistic regression to identify factors associated with first or last authorship affiliated with the study country.ResultsThere were 14 113 authors in 1751 articles. Nearly half (45.5%) of the articles reported work conducted in lower middle-income countries (MICs), 23.6% in upper MICs, 22.5% in low-income countries (LICs). Authors affiliated with HICs were most represented (40.7%); 26.4% were affiliated with lower MICs, 17.4% with upper MICs, 10.3% with LICs and 5.1% with mixed affiliations. Among single-country studies, those without any local authors (8.7%) were most common among those conducted in LICs (14.4%). Only 31.0% of first authors and 21.3% of last authors were affiliated with LIC study countries. Studies in upper MICs (adjusted OR (aOR) 3.6, 95% CI 2.46 to 5.26) and those funded by the study country (aOR 2.94, 95% CI 2.05 to 4.20) had greater odds of having a local first author.ConclusionsThere were significant disparities in authorship representation. Authors affiliated with HICs more commonly occupied the most prominent authorship positions. Recognising and addressing power imbalances in international, collaborative emergency medicine (EM) research is warranted. Innovative methods are needed to increase funding opportunities and other support for EM researchers in LMICs, particularly in LICs.

Introduction Injuries cause significant burdens in sub-Saharan Africa. In Rwanda, national regulations to reduce COVID-19 altered population mobility and resource allocations. This study evaluated epidemiological trends and care among injured patients preceding and during the COVID-19 pandemic at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Kigali (CHUK) in Kigali, Rwanda. Methods This prospective interrupted cross-sectional study enrolled injured adult patients (≥15 years) presenting to the CHUK emergency department (ED) from January 27th-March 21st (pre-COVID-19 period) and June 1st-28th (intra-COVID-19 period). Trained study personnel continuously collected standardized data on enrolled participants through the first six-hours of ED care. The Kampala Trauma Score (KTS) was calculated as a metric of injury severity. Case characteristics prior to and during the pandemic were compared, statistical differences were assessed using χ 2 or Fisher's exact tests. Results Data were collected from 409 pre-COVID-19 and 194 intra-COVID-19 cases. Median age was 32, with a male predominance (74.3%). Road traffic injuries (RTI) were the most common injury mechanism pre-COVID-19 (47.8%) and intra-COVID-19 (53.6%) ( p = 0.27). There was a significant increase in the number of transfer cases during the intra-COVID-19 period (52.1%) versus pre-COVID-19 (41.3%) ( p = 0.01). KTS was significantly lower among intra-COVID-19 patients ( p = 0.04), indicating higher severity of presentation. In the intra-COVID-19 period, there was a significant increase in the number of surgery consultations (40.7%) versus pre-COVID-19 (26.7%) ( p < 0.001). The number of hospital admissions increased from 35.5% pre-COVID-19 to 46.4% intra-COVID-19 ( p = 0.01). There was no significant mortality difference pre-COVID-19 as compared to the intra-COVID-19 period among injured patients ( p = 0.76). Conclusion Emergency injury care showed increased injury burden, inpatient admission and resource requirements during the pandemic period. This suggests the spectrum of disease may be more severe and that greater resources for injury management may continue to be needed during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in Rwanda and other similar settings.

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Introduction: While trauma prognostication and triage scores have been designed for use in lowerresourced healthcare settings specifically, the comparative clinical performance between trauma-specific and general triage scores for risk-stratifying injured patients in such settings is not well understood. This study evaluated the Kampala Trauma Score (KTS), Revised Trauma Score (RTS), and Triage Early Warning Score (TEWS) for accuracy in predicting mortality among injured patients seeking emergency department (ED) care at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Kigali (CHUK) in Rwanda. Methods: A retrospective, randomly sampled cohort of ED patients presenting with injury was accrued from August 2015-July 2016. Primary outcome was 14-day mortality and secondary outcome was overall facilitybased mortality. We evaluated summary statistics of the cohort. Bootstrap regression models were used to compare areas under receiver operating curves (AUC) with associated 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results: Among 617 cases, the median age was 32 years and 73.5% were male. The most frequent mechanism of injury was road traffic incident (56.2%). Predominant anatomical regions of injury were craniofacial (39.3%) and lower extremities (38.7%), and the most common injury types were fracture (46.0%) and contusion (12.0%). Fourteen-day mortality was 2.6% and overall facility-based mortality was 3.4%. For 14-day mortality, TEWS had the highest accuracy (AUC = 0.88, 95% CI, 0.76-1.00), followed by RTS (AUC = 0.73, 95% CI, 0.55-0.92), and then KTS (AUC = 0.65, 95% CI, 0.47-0.84). Similarly, for facility-based mortality, TEWS (AUC = 0.89, 95% CI, 0.79-0.98) had greater accuracy than RTS (AUC = 0.76, 95% CI, 0.61-0.91) and KTS (AUC = 0.68, 95% CI, 0.53-0.83). On pairwise comparisons, RTS had greater prognostic accuracy than KTS for 14-day mortality (P = 0.011) and TEWS had greater accuracy than KTS for overall (P = 0.007) mortality. However, TEWS and RTS accuracy were not significantly different for 14-day mortality (P = 0.864) or facility-based mortality (P = 0.101). Conclusion: In this cohort of emergently injured patients in Rwanda, the TEWS demonstrated the greatest accuracy for predicting mortality outcomes, with no significant discriminatory benefit found in the use of the trauma-specific RTS or KTS instruments, suggesting that the TEWS is the most clinically useful approach in the setting studied and likely in other similar ED environments. [West J Emerg Med. 2021;22(2)435-444.]