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Background. Blood transfusion is the cornerstone of therapy for many serious and common diseases. This study was performed to assess blood transfusion practice before and after implementation of type and screen protocol in emergency department of a university affiliated hospital in Iran, 2012-2013. Methods. An audit was studied before and after the implementation of type and screen protocol. The number of blood transfusions, time interval between blood order and transfusion, cross-match to transfusion ratio (C/T ratio), and transfusion index (TI) were checked. C/T ratio was used as a measure of the efficiency of blood ordering practice. We compared our results before and after implementation of type and screen protocol. Results. In present study after implementation of type and screen protocol, the time interval between requesting blood transfusion and transfusion of blood has decreased significantly (P < 0.001). The number of blood transfusions required by actual patients increased significantly from 1/2 to 2 (P < 0.001). The average cross-match to transfusion (C/T) ratio got near 1.13 from 1.41 and TI got near 0.91 from 0.58 (P < 0.001). Conclusion. The implementation of T&S protocol has been proven to be safe, efficient, and beneficial to the transfusion practice of our hospital from the current study.

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The present study aimed to determine the relationship between the level of air pollutants and the rate of ischemic stroke (IS) admissions to hospitals. In this retrospective cross-sectional study, stroke admissions (January-March 2012 and 2013) to an emergency department and air pollution and meteorological data were gathered. The relationship between air pollutant levels and hospital admission rates were evaluated using the generalize additive model. In all 379 patients with IS were referred to the hospital (52.5% male; mean age 68.2±13.3 years). Both transient (p<0.001) and long-term (p<0.001) rises in CO level increases the risk of IS. Increased weekly (p<0.001) and monthly (p<0.001) average O3 levels amplifies this risk, while a transient increase in NO2 (p<0.001) and SO2 (p<0.001) levels has the same effect. Long-term changes in PM10 (p<0.001) and PM2.5 (p<0.001) also increase the risk of IS. The findings showed that the level of air pollutants directly correlates with the number of stroke admissions to the emergency department.

Myopic shift and gradually increasing CCT in the patients after Topiramate administration should be considered before any refractive surgery. We found no gradual change in the anterior chamber and angle parameters in our patients in the 90 days of follow up. More studies with a longer duration of follow-up are needed to elucidate dose-dependent ocular manifestations.

Antioxidant micronutrients in the extract of Persian shallot may rehabilitate liver damages caused by free radicals in diabetic rats.

Findings demonstrate that patient handover in the ED did not initially follow the ISBAR standard guideline. After providing education as pamphlets and lectures to EMS staff and EMAs, a high percentage of patient handovers were conducted in accordance with the ISBAR instructions. Fahim Yegane SA , Shahrami A , Hatamabadi HR , Hosseini-Zijoud SM . Clinical information transfer between EMS staff and Emergency Medicine Assistants during handover of trauma patients. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2017;32(5):541-547.

This study aimed to compare evidence-based medicine (EBM) vs. conventional approaches to journal club sessions in teaching critical appraisal skills in reading papers by emergency medicine residents. This double cut off discontinuation regression quasi-experimental study was conducted among emergency medicine residents. EBM vs. the conventional approach were applied to teach critical appraisal skills for half of the residents as an experimental group and another half as a control group respectively. Both groups participated in one hour monthly journal club sessions for six months. Before and after the study, all participants were examined by two tests: the Fresno Test (FT) [to evaluate their knowledge about EBM] and the Critical Appraisal Skills Test (CAST) [to evaluate their competency with critical appraisal skills]. The allocation of the participants into the experimental or control groups was according to their CAST scores before the study. 50 emergency medicine residents participated. After the study, the scores of both groups in the FT and CAST significantly improved (p<0.01), and the promotion of scores of the FT and CAST in the experimental group were more than that of the conventional group (p<0.0001). The current study indicated that an evidence-based medicine approach in journal club sessions was comparatively more advantageous compared to the conventional approach in teaching critical appraisal skills for reading papers among the residents of emergency medicine.