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Background: Determining the appropriate disposition of emergency department (ED) syncope patients is challenging. Previously developed decision tools have poor diagnostic test characteristics and methodological flaws in their derivation that preclude their use. We sought to develop a scale to risk-stratify adult ED syncope patients at risk for serious adverse events (SAEs) within 30 days., Methods: We conducted a medical record review to include syncope patients age ≥ 16 years and excluded patients with ongoing altered mental status, alcohol or illicit drug use, seizure, head injury leading to loss of consciousness, or severe trauma requiring admission. We collected 105 predictor variables (demographics, event characteristics, comorbidities, medications, vital signs, clinical examination findings, emergency medical services and ED electrocardiogram/monitor characteristics, investigations, and disposition variables) and information on the occurrence of predefined SAEs. Univariate and multiple logistic regression analyses were performed., Results: Among 505 enrolled patient visits, 49 (9.7%) suffered an SAE. Predictors of SAE and their resulting point scores were as follows: age ≥ 75 years (1), shortness of breath (2), lowest ED systolic blood pressure < 80 mm Hg (2), Ottawa Electrocardiographic Criteria present (2), and blood urea nitrogen > 15 mmol/L (3). The final score calculated by addition of the individual scores for each variable (range 0-10) was found to accurately stratify patients into low risk (score < 1, 0% SAE risk), moderate risk (score 1, 3.7% SAE risk), or high risk (score > 1, ≥ 10% SAE risk)., Conclusion: We derived a risk scale that accurately predicts SAEs within 30 days in ED syncope patients. If validated, this will be a potentially useful clinical decision tool for emergency physicians, may allow judicious use of health care resources, and may improve patient care and safety.

Background: Since hospitalist physicians do not frequently see patients in follow-up after discharge from the hospital, patient continuity of care will decrease. To determine how this influenced patient outcomes, we examined the independent association of several physician continuity and information continuity measures on death or urgent readmission after discharge from hospital., Design: Multicenter, prospective cohort study of patients discharged to the community after elective or emergency hospitalization. We measured three physician continuity scores (preadmission; hospital; and postdischarge) and two information continuity scores (discharge summary; postdischarge visit information) as time-dependent covariates. Continuity scores ranged from 0 (perfect discontinuity) to 1 (perfect continuity). The primary outcomes were time to all-cause death or urgent readmission., Results: A total of 3876 people were followed for a median of 175 days. Death rate was 2.6 events per 100 patient-years observation (pys) (95% confidence interval [CI], 2.0-3.4) and urgent readmission rate was 19.6 events per 100 pys (95% CI, 15.9-24.3). After adjusting for important covariates and other continuity scores, increased preadmission physician continuity was independently associated with a decreased risk of urgent readmission (adjusted hazard ratio 0.94 [95% CI, 0.91-0.98] for each absolute increase in continuity of 0.1). Other continuity measures-including hospital physician continuity-were not associated with either outcome., Conclusions: After discharge from the hospital, increased continuity with physicians who routinely treated the patient prior to the admission was significantly and independently associated with a decreased risk of urgent readmission. These data suggest that continuity with the hospital physician after discharge did not independently influence the risk of patient death or urgent readmission., (Journal of Hospital Medicine 2010. © 2010 Society of Hospital Medicine.)