Brian J Yun

Boston Medical Center · Department of Emergency Medicine

Introduction: While emergency department (ED) crowding has deleterious effects on patient care outcomes and operational efficiency, impacts on the experience for patients discharged from the ED are unknown. We aimed to study how patient-reported experience is affected by ED crowding to characterize which factors most impact discharged patient exper...

Objectives Adverse reactions to IV iodinated contrast media are classified by the ACR Manual on Contrast Media as either allergic-like (ALR) or physiologic (PR). Premedication may be beneficial for patients who have prior documented mild or moderate ALR. We sought to perform a retrospective analysis of patients who received CT imaging in our emerge...

Background Emergency department boarding and crowding lead to worse patient outcomes and patient satisfaction. Objective We describe the implementation of a program to transfer patients requiring medical admission from an academic emergency department to a community hospital's medical floor and analyze its effects on patient outcomes. Methods A p...

Objectives: Our study examines the impact of an emergency department (ED) patient navigation program for patients in a Medicaid accountable care organization across 3 hospitals in a large health system. Our program engages community health workers to (1) promote primary care engagement, (2) facilitate care coordination, and (3) identify and addres...

Introduction: ED health care professionals are at the frontline of evaluation and management of patients with acute, and often undifferentiated, illness. During the initial phase of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, there were concerns that ED health care professionals may have been at increased risk of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 due to difficulty in early ide...

Introduction: Delays in inpatient colonoscopy are commonly caused by inadequate bowel preparation and result in increased hospital length of stay (LOS) and healthcare costs. Low volume bowel preparation (LV-BP; sodium sulfate, potassium sulfate, and magnesium sulfate) has been shown to improve outpatient bowel preparation quality compared to stand...

Objectives Caring for patients with COVID-19 has resulted in a considerable strain on hospital capacity. One strategy to mitigate crowding is the use of ED-based observation units to care for patients who may have otherwise required hospitalization. We sought to create a COVID-19 Observation Protocol for our ED Observation Unit (EDOU) for patients...

Introduction: Prevention quality indicators (PQI) are a set of measures used to characterize healthcare utilization for conditions identified as being potentially preventable with high quality ambulatory care. These indicators have recently been adapted for emergency department (ED) patient presentations. In this study the authors sought to identi...

COVID-19 continues to challenge bed capacity and the ability of hospitals to provide quality care for patients around the country. However, the COVID-19 pandemic at a given point in time does not impact all hospitals equally-even within a single healthcare system, one hospital may be caring for patients in the hallways, while another has available...

Objectives: Academic emergency physicians must find ways to teach residents, medical students, and advanced practice providers amidst the myriad demands on their time during clinical shifts. In this study, we sought to characterize in detail what types of teaching occurred, how often they occurred, and how attending teaching styles differed at one...

For hospital-affiliated accountable care organizations (ACOs), emergency care represents a unique challenge for coordination of care and a major source of ACO leakage. The authors analyzed emergency department (ED) visits among ACO members to assess the potential impact of ambulance transport on the use of in-network versus out-of-network EDs. To b...

Health-related social needs (HRSNs), such as food or housing insecurity, are important drivers of disparities in outcomes during public health emergencies. We describe the development of a telehealth follow-up program in Boston, Massachusetts, for patients discharged from the emergency department after coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) testing to...

Objective Prior data suggest Emergency Department (ED) visits for many emergency conditions decreased during the initial COVID-19 surge. However, the pandemic's impact on the wide range of conditions seen in EDs, and the resources required for treating them, has been less studied. We sought to provide a comprehensive analysis of ED visits and assoc...

Executive summary: Postdischarge telephone calls by nurses can decrease patient return rates to healthcare systems. To date, call program costs have not been compared with patient return rates to determine cost-effectiveness. We used time-driven activity-based costing to determine the costs associated with such programs. We developed process maps...

Background Mitigating hospital crowding requires judicious use of inpatient resources, making Emergency Department Observation Units (EDOUs) an increasingly vital destination for patients that are not suitable for discharge. Maximizing the utility of the EDOU hinges on efficient patient transfers and safe provider communication, which may be accomp...

Emergency department (ED) crowding continues to be a major challenge and has important ramifications for patient care quality. One strategy to decrease ED crowding has been to implement alternative pathways to traditional hospital admission. Through a survey-based retrospective cohort study, we aimed to assess the patient experience for those who a...

Introduction: Delays in identification and treatment of acute stroke contribute to significant morbidity and mortality. Multiple clinical factors have been associated with delays in acute stroke care. We aimed to determine the relationship between emergency department (ED) crowding and the delivery of timely emergency stroke care. Methods: We us...

Introduction: Adverse effects of administrative burden on emergency physicians have been described previously, but the impact of electronic health record documentation by academic emergency attendings on resident education is not known. In this observational study of a quaternary care, academic emergency department, we sought to assess whether the...

Alternatives to inpatient admission have been shown to be safe and effective for a variety of clinical conditions and can help relieve emergency department (ED) and inpatient crowding. Evidence-based alternatives include use of rapid ED follow-up clinics, observation units, and home hospital programs. Use of accelerated diagnostic pathways and shar...

The global COVID-19 pandemic has become one of the largest clinical and operational challenges faced by emergency medicine, and our EDs continue to see increased volumes of infected patients, many of whom are not only ill, but acutely aware and fearful of their circumstances and potential mortality. Given this, there may be no more important time t...

Background Poor adherence to evidence-based guidelines and overuse of broad-spectrum antibiotics has been noted in the emergency department (ED). There is limited evidence on guideline-congruent empiric therapy for urinary tract infections (UTIs) and uropathogen susceptibilities in the ED observation unit (EDOU). Objective The primary objective wa...

Background Neighborhood stress score (NSS) and area deprivation index (ADI) are two neighborhood-based composite measures used to quantify an individual's socioeconomic risk based on home location. In this analysis, we compare the relationships between an individual's socioeconomic risk, based on each of these measures, and potentially preventable...

Study objective: The effect of urgent cares on local emergency department (ED) patient volumes is presently unknown. In this paper, we aimed to assess the change in low-acuity ED utilization at 2 academic medical centers in relation to patient proximity to an affiliated urgent care. Methods: We created a geospatial database of ED visits occurrin...

Purpose: Oncologic imaging in the emergency department (ED) is frequently encountered, including non-acute scans known as "metastatic workups" or "staging" (referred to as "cancer staging computed tomography (CT) exams"). This study examines the impact of oncologic staging CT exams on ED imaging turnaround time (TAT), defined as the time from the...

Introduction: Rapid sedation of severely agitated patients is often necessary to ensure the safety of patients and healthcare workers. Intramuscular (IM) ketamine 4–6 mg/kg was previously studied but may carry an increased risk of intubation and other adverse effects. Therefore, the purpose of this case series was to describe the efficacy and safet...

Introduction: Traumatic intracranial hemorrhage (TIH), brain injury with radiographic hemorrhage, is a common emergency department (ED) presentation, and encompasses a wide range of clinical syndromes. Patients with moderate and severe neurotrauma (Glasgow Coma Scale [GCS] < 13) with intracranial hemorrhage require care at a trauma center with neu...

As emergency department (ED) crowding continues to worsen, many visits are at academic referral hospitals. As a result, engaging specialty services will be essential to decompressing the ED. To do this, it will be important to understand which specialties to focus interventions on for the greatest impact. To characterize the ED utilization of non-s...

Background Much work on reducing ED utilization has focused on primary care practices, but few studies have examined ED visits from patients followed by specialists, especially when the ED visit is related to the specialist’s clinical practice. Objective To determine the proportion and characteristics of patients that utilized the ED for specialty...

Introduction: Increased use of computed tomography (CT) during injury-related Emergency Department (ED) visits has been reported, despite increased awareness of CT radiation exposure risks. We investigated national trends in the use of chest CT during injury-related ED visits between 2012 and 2015. Methods: Analyzing injury-related ED visits fro...

Objective: The prediction of emergency department (ED) disposition at triage remains challenging. Machine learning approaches may enhance prediction. We compared the performance of several machine learning approaches for predicting two clinical outcomes (critical care and hospitalization) among ED patients with asthma or COPD exacerbation. Method...

Introduction: Studies have shown increasing utilization of head computed tomography (CT) imaging of emergency department (ED) patients presenting with an injury-related visit. Multiple initiatives, including the Choosing Wisely™ campaign and evidence-based clinical decision support based on validated decision rules, have targeted head CT use in pa...

Introduction Emergency departments (ED) and hospitals face increasing challenges related to capacity, throughput, and stewardship of limited resources while maintaining high quality. Appropriate utilization of extremity magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examinations within the emergency setting is not well known. Therefore, this study aimed to deter...

Objectives: Among emergency physicians, there is wide variation in admitting practices for patients who suffered a mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) with an intracranial hemorrhage (ICH). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of implementing a protocol in the emergency department (ED) observation unit for patients with mild TBI and...

Purpose: To characterize the management, outcomes, and emergency department (ED) length of stay (LOS) following iodinated contrast media extravasation events in the ED. Methods: All ED patients who developed iodinated contrast media extravasation following contrast-enhanced CT (CECT) from October 2007-December 2016 were retrospectively identifie...

Introduction: Routine medical clearance testing of emergency department (ED) patients with acute psychiatric illnesses in the absence of a medical indication has minimal proven utility. Little is known about the variations in clinical practice of ordering medical clearance tests. Methods: This study was an analysis of data from the annual United...

Purpose: Determine the incidence, management, and impact on patient disposition of allergic-like contrast reactions (ALCR) to intravenous iodinated contrast in the emergency department (ED). Methods: All ED patients who developed an ALCR following contrast-enhanced CT (CECT) from June 2011-December 2016 were retrospectively identified. Medical r...

Background: As the numbers of emergency department (ED) visits and inpatient admissions continue to increase, there is growing interest in alternatives to inpatient hospitalization. Objective: Our aim was to investigate a novel approach to expediting discharges from the ED with multidisciplinary discharge services to prevent an avoidable admissi...

Background: Unverified penicillin allergy leads to adverse downstream clinical and economic sequelae. Penicillin allergy evaluation can be used to identify true, IgE-mediated allergy. Objective: To estimate the cost of penicillin allergy evaluation using time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC). Methods: We implemented TDABC throughout the c...

Introduction Emergency department observation units (EDOUs) are a valuable alternative to inpatient admissions for ED patients needing extended care. However, while the use of advanced imaging is becoming more common in the ED, there are no studies characterizing the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examinations in the EDOU. Methods This in...

Background: The prevalence of back pain is rising, as is the use of high-cost imaging in the ED. The objective of our study was to determine if an MRI in the ED for patients with back pain resulted in a lower incidence of ED return visit and to determine if these patients had longer ED length of stay (LOS) and use of ED observation. Methods: A r...

Introduction: In emergency medicine (EM), patient care documentation serves many functions, including supporting reimbursement. In addition, many electronic health record systems facilitate automatically populating certain data fields. As a result, in the academic model, the attending's note may now more often recapitulate many of the same element...

Introduction Emergency department (ED) crowding is widespread, and can result in care delays, medical errors, increased costs, and decreased patient satisfaction. Simultaneously, while capacity constraints on EDs are worsening, contributing factors such as patient volume and inpatient bed capacity are often outside the influence of ED administrator...

Objective: Current guidelines do not address the disposition of patients with mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) and resultant intracranial hemorrhage (ICH). Emergency medicine clinicians working in hospitals without neurosurgery coverage typically transfer patients with both to a trauma center with neurosurgery capability. Evidence is accruing whi...

Background: Aortic dissection is typically evaluated with computed tomography angiography (CTA). However, the feasibility of using magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) in the ED is unclear. This study examined the indications and outcomes of MRA in suspected aortic dissection evaluation in the ED. Methods: An IRB approved review identified patie...

Study objective: Hip fractures cause significant morbidity and mortality. Determining the optimal diagnostic strategy for the subset of patients with potential occult hip fracture remains challenging. We determined the most cost-effective strategy for the diagnosis of occult hip fractures from the choices of performing only computed topography (CT...

Background: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act supports the establishment of accountable care organizations (ACOs) as care delivery models designed to save costs. The potential for these cost savings has been demonstrated in the primary care and inpatient populations, but not for patients with emergency conditions or traumatic injuries....

Value in emergency medicine is determined by both patient-important outcomes and the costs associated with achieving them. However, measuring true costs is challenging. Without an understanding of costs, emergency department (ED) leaders will be unable to determine which interventions might improve value for their patients. Although ongoing researc...

This study aims to determine the use of diagnostic imaging in emergency department (ED) observation units, particularly relative to inpatients admitted from the ED. Retrospective, descriptive analysis. Our database of ED patients was retrospectively reviewed to identify patients managed in the observation unit or admitted to inpatient services. In...

We sought to better understand the experience of being a boarder patient. We conducted a qualitative study between March and August 2012 to examine the experience of boarding in an urban, teaching hospital emergency department (ED). We included boarder patients and selected patients based on a convenience sample. Interviews were semistructured, con...

Abstract Objectives. While optical and video laryngoscopy have been studied in the emergency department, the operating room, and the routine prehospital setting, their efficacy in the tactical environment-in which operator safety is as important as intubation success-has not been evaluated. This study compared direct laryngoscopes to optical (AirTr...