Department Blog - October 2016

Steve Schenkel, MD, MPP, and Teresa Kostelec, BSN, from the ED at Mercy Medical Center; Laura Pimentel, MD, CPME, Chief Medical Officer of the Maryland Emergency Medicine Network; and Ivonne Berges, PhD, and Glenn Ostir, PhD, from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, published the article titled “Cognitive Health and Risk of ED Revisit in Underserved Older Adults” in the October issue of the American Journal of Emergency Medicine (34[10]:1973?1976). Their study group, mostly African-American women with an average age of 75 years, had overall cognitive scores lower than population norms. The investigators found a significant association between cognitive health and the odds of return to the ED in 60 or 90 days. Their observations hold implications for the format and content of discharge instructions, especially for patients with impaired cognitive function.

Jon Mark Hirshon, MD, MPH, PhD, published the article titled “Using Timely Survey-Based Information Networks to Collect Data on Best Practices for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response: Illustrative Case from the American College of Emergency Physicians' Ebola Surveys,” which was published in the August issue of Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness (10[4]:681‒690). Through the electronic distribution of surveys that assessed medical facilities’ readiness to assess and treat people infected with the Ebola virus, Dr. Hirshon and his co-authors, members of ACEP's Ebola Expert Panel, demonstrated the ability to monitor the delivery of health care during public health emergencies and to implement “real-time” modifications in health care processes as warranted by survey results.

A case report by Zachary Dezman, MD, MS, and Jennifer Reifel Saltzberg, MD, MPH, has been published in the "Images in Emergency Medicine" column of Annals of Emergency Medicine (2016;68:e77‒8). It describes a diabetic man with blisters on his hands. The diagnosis was the rare condition of bullosis diabeticorum.

Larry D. Weiss, MD, JD, presented two Grand Rounds lectures at the Massachusetts General Hospital for the Department of Emergency Medicine of the Harvard University School of Medicine on September 20. His topics were "Risk Reduction in Emergency Medicine" and "Physician Practice Rights."