Twitter: @MarkLangdorf.Study objective: Chest computed tomography (CT) diagnoses more injuries than chest radiography, so-called occult injuries. Wide availability of chest CT has driven substantial increase in emergency department use, although the incidence and clinical significance of chest CT findings have not been fully described. We determine the frequency, severity, and clinical import of occult injury, as determined by changes in management. These data will better inform clinical decisions, need for chest CT, and odds of intervention.Methods: Our sample included prospective data (2009 to 2013) on 5,912 patients at 10 Level I trauma center EDs with both chest radiography and chest CT at physician discretion. These patients were 40.6% of 14,553 enrolled in the parent study who had either chest radiography or chest CT. Occult injuries were pneumothorax, hemothorax, sternal or greater than 2 rib fractures, pulmonary contusion, thoracic spine or scapula fracture, and diaphragm or great vessel injury found on chest CT but not on preceding chest radiography. A priori, we categorized thoracic injuries as major (having invasive procedures), minor (observation or inpatient pain control >24 hours), or of no clinical significance. Primary outcome was prevalence and proportion of occult injury with major interventions of chest tube, mechanical ventilation, or surgery. Secondary outcome was minor interventions of admission rate or observation hours because of occult injury.Results: Two thousand forty-eight patients (34.6%) had chest injury on chest radiography or chest CT, whereas 1,454 of these patients (71.0%, 24.6% of all patients) had occult injury. Of these, in 954 patients (46.6% of injured, 16.1% of total), chest CT found injuries not observed on immediately preceding chest radiography. In 500 more patients (24.4% of injured patients, 8.5% of all patients), chest radiography found some injury, but chest CT found occult injury. Chest radiography found all injuries in only 29.0% of injured patients. Two hundred and two patients with occult injury (of 1,454, 13.9%) had major interventions, 343 of 1,454 (23.6%) had minor interventions, and 909 (62.5%) had no intervention. Patients with occult injury included 514 with pulmonary contusions (of 682 total, 75.4% occult), 405 with pneumothorax (of 597 total, 67.8% occult), 184 with hemothorax (of 230 total, 80.0% occult), those with greater than 2 rib fractures (n¼672/1,120, 60.0% occult) or sternal fracture (n¼269/281, 95.7% occult), 12 with great vessel injury (of 18 total, 66.7% occult), 5 with diaphragm injury (of 6, 83.3% occult), and 537 with multiple occult injuries. Interventions for patients with occult injury included mechanical ventilation for 31 of 514 patients with pulmonary contusion (6.0%), chest tube for 118 of 405 patients with pneumothorax (29.1%), and 75 of 184 patients with hemothorax (40.8%). Inpatient pain control or observation greater than 24 hours was conducted for 183 of 672 patients with rib fractures (27.2%) and 79 of 269 with sternal fractur...

IntroductionThe Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) of 1986 was enacted to prevent hospitals from “dumping” or refusing service to patients for financial reasons. The statute prohibits discrimination of emergency department (ED) patients for any reason. The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services enforces the statute. The objective of this study is to determine the scope, cost, frequency and most common allegations leading to monetary settlement against hospitals and physicians for patient dumping.MethodsReview of OIG investigation archives in May 2015, including cases settled from 2002–2015 ( https://oig.hhs.gov/fraud/enforcement/cmp/patient_dumping.asp ).ResultsThere were 192 settlements (14 per year average for 4000+ hospitals in the USA). Fines against hospitals and physicians totaled $6,357,000 (averages $33,435 and $25,625 respectively); 184/192 (95.8%, $6,152,000) settlements were against hospitals and eight against physicians ($205,000). Most common settlements were for failing to screen 144/192 (75%) and stabilize 82/192 (42.7%) for emergency medical conditions (EMC). There were 22 (11.5%) cases of inappropriate transfer and 22 (11.5%) more where the hospital failed to transfer. Hospitals failed to accept an appropriate transfer in 25 (13.0%) cases. Patients were turned away from hospitals for insurance/financial status in 30 (15.6%) cases. There were 13 (6.8%) violations for patients in active labor. In 12 (6.3%) cases, the on-call physician refused to see the patient, and in 28 (14.6%) cases the patient was inappropriately discharged. Although loss of Medicare/Medicaid funding is an additional possible penalty, there were no disclosures of exclusion of hospitals from federal funding. There were 6,035 CMS investigations during this time period, with 2,436 found to have merit as EMTALA violations (40.4%). However, only 192/6,035 (3.2%) actually resulted in OIG settlements. The proportion of CMS-certified EMTALA violations that resulted in OIG settlements was 7.9% (192/2,436).ConclusionOf 192 hospital and physician settlements with the OIG from 2002–15, most were for failing to provide screening (75%) and stabilization (42%) to patients with EMCs. The reason for patient “dumping” was due to insurance or financial status in 15.6% of settlements. The vast majority of penalties were to hospitals (95% of cases and 97% of payments). Forty percent of investigations found EMTALA violations, but only 3% of investigations triggered fines.

IntroductionCost and radiation risk have prompted intense examination of trauma patient imaging. A proposed decision instrument (DI) for the use of chest computed tomography (CT), (CCT) in blunt trauma patients includes thoracic spine (TS) tenderness, altered mental status (AMS) and distracting painful injury (DPI) as potential predictor variables. TS CT is a separate, costly study whose value is currently ill-defined. The objective of this study is to determine test characteristics of these predictor variables alone, and in combination, to derive a TS injury DI.MethodsProspective cohort study of blunt trauma patients age > 14 in a Level I Trauma Center who had either CCT or TS CT.ResultsOf 1,798 blunt trauma patients, 1,174 (65.3%) had CCT, and 46 (2.6%) had a TS CT at physician discretion. CCT identified 58 TS injuries in 1,220 patients (4.8%). For 1,032 patients without AMS, 18/35 had TS tenderness, for sensitivity of 51.4%, specificity 84.7%, positive (PPV) and negative predictive values (NPV) of 10.5% and 98.0%. Positive likelihood ratio (+LR) was 3.35, with negative (−LR) 0.57. Among the 58 TS injuries, 23 had AMS for sensitivity of 39.7%, with other test characteristics of 85.8%, 12.2%, 96.6%, with +LR 2.79 and −LR 0.70. Thirty-eight of 58 had DPI, for sensitivity 65.5%, with other test characteristics 65.7%, 8.7%, and 97.4%, with +LR 1.91 and −LR 0.52. Combining 3 predictor variables into a proposed DI found 56/58 injuries for test characteristics of 96.6% (95% CI 88.1–99.6%), 49.1% (46.1–52.0%), 8.6% (6.6–11.1%) and 99.7% (CI 98.7–100%), with +LR 1.90 (1.76–2.04) and −LR 0.07 (0.02–0.28). If validated, the DI would exclude 572/1,220 CCT patients from separate TS CT (46.9%, CI 44.1–49.7%), and 141/511 (27.6%, CI 23.8–31.7%) patients who actually had TS CT in our cohort. Medicare payment at our center for sagittal reconstructions of TS CT is $280 for professional plus technical charges ($3,312 per study). The DI, if validated, would save $39,000–$160,000 in TS imaging payments.ConclusionTS CT is low yield and costly. Patients who are alert, have no TS tenderness and no DPI have a very low likelihood of TS injury (NPV 99.7% 95% CI lower limit 98.7%) with –LR=0.07, 95% CI upper limit 0.28). Avoiding TS CT may save considerable charges and payments.

Background: Overcrowding in emergency departments (EDs) in the United States has been linked to worse patient outcomes. Implementation of countermeasures such as a physician-in-triage (PIT) system have improved patient care and decreased wait times. The purpose of this study was to evaluate how a PIT system affects medical resident education in an academic ED.Methods: This was a retrospective observational comparison of resident metrics at a single-site, urban, academic ED before and after implementing a PIT system. Resident metrics of average emergency severity index (ESI), patients-per-hour, and in-training-examination scores were measured before and six months after the implementation of the PIT system.Results: In total, 18,231 patients were evaluated by all residents in the study period before PIT implementation compared to 17,008 in the study period following PIT implementation. The average ESI among patients evaluated by residents decreased from 3.00 to 2.68 (p < 0.01, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.31 to 0.33), while average resident patient-per-hour rate decreased from 1.41 to 1.32 (p < 0.01, 95% CI = 0.05 to 0.13] and ITE scores saw no statistically significant change of 76.11 to 78.26 (p = 0.26, 95% CI = À5.75 to 1.45). While these differences are statistically significant, they are likely not clinically significant.Conclusions: Our implementation of PIT system at one academic medical center minimally increased the acuity and minimally decreased the number of patients that residents see. This suggested that in our center, a PIT program did not detract from ED resident clinical education. However, further research with alternative markers in multiple centers is needed.

Background/Objective Computed tomography (CT) is common for trauma victims, but is usually done without informing patients of potential risks or obtaining informed consent. The objective of this study was to determine the feasibility of two elements (time and normal level of alertness) necessary for informed consent for CT in adult trauma patients. Methods We conducted this prospective observational, two-phase cohort study at two urban, Level 1 trauma centers. In the first phase, we determined the median time needed to obtain informed consent for CT by performing sham consent on 11 injured patients at each site. In the second phase, we observed all adult trauma activation cases that presented during specified time blocks and recorded Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) scores and the time available for consent (TAC) for CT—defined as the time between the end of the secondary trauma survey and when the patient left the resuscitation room to go to CT. We defined, a priori, feasible consent cases as those in which the patient had a GCS of 15 and a TAC > the median sham consent time at that site. Results The median times for sham CT consent at the two sites were 3:36 and 2:09 minutes:seconds (range 1:12 – 4:54). Of the 729 trauma patients enrolled during phase two, 646 (89%) had a CT scan, and of these 646 patients, 461 (71.4% [95% CI 67.8 – 74.7%]) met feasible consent criteria. Of the 185 patients who failed to meet feasible consent criteria, 171 (92.4%) had a GCS < 15, 1 (0.5%) had a TAC < the sham consent time, and 13 (7.0%) had both. Conclusion We found that informed consent for CT was likely feasible in over two-thirds of acute, adult trauma patients.