Acute musculoskeletal infection in children: assessment and management.

Musculoskeletal infection in children is challenging to treat, and includes septic arthritis, deep tissue infection, osteomyelitis, discitis and pyomyositis. Delays to diagnosis and management, and under-treatment can be life-threatening and result in chronic disability. The British Orthopaedic Association Standards for Trauma include critical steps in the timely diagnosis and management of acute musculoskeletal infection in children, the principles of acute clinical care and the service delivery requirements to appropriately manage this cohort of patients. Orthopaedic and paediatric services are likely to encounter cases of acute musculoskeletal infection in children and thus an awareness and thorough understanding of the British Orthopaedic Association Standards for Trauma guidelines is essential. This article reviews these guidelines and associated published evidence for the management of children with acute musculoskeletal infection.

The impact of improving teamwork on patient outcomes in surgery: A systematic review.

BACKGROUND: The aviation industry pioneered formalised crew training in order to improve safety and reduce consequences of non-technical error. This formalised training has been successfully adapted and used to in the field of surgery to improve post-operative patient outcomes. The need to implement teamwork training as an integral part of a surgical programme is increasingly being recognised. We aim to systematically review the impact of surgical teamwork training on post-operative outcomes. METHODS: Two independent researchers systematically searched MEDLINE and Embase in accordance with PRISMA guidelines. Studies were screened and subjected to inclusion/exclusion criteria. Study characteristics and outcomes were reported and analysed. RESULTS: Our initial search identified 2720 articles. Following duplicate removal, title and abstract screening, 107 full text articles were analysed. Eight articles met our inclusion criteria. Overall, three articles supported a positive effect of good teamwork on post-operative patient outcomes. We identified key areas in study methodology that can be improved upon, including small cohort size, lack of unified training programme, and short training duration, should future studies be designed and implemented in this field. CONCLUSION: At present, there is insufficient evidence to support the hypothesis that teamwork training interventions improve patient outcomes. We believe that non-significant and conflicting results can be attributed to flaws in methodology and non-uniform training methods. With increasing amounts of evidence in this field, we predict a positive association between teamwork training and patient outcomes will come to light.

The 2015 advanced life support guidelines: a summary and evidence for the updates.

The International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation recently released updated 2015 recommendations for resuscitation. The guidelines form the basis for all levels of resuscitation training, now from first aid to advanced life support (ALS), and for trainees of varying medical skills, from schoolchildren to medical students and consultants. We highlight major updates relating to intra-arrest and postarrest care, and the evidence for their recommendation. We also summarise areas of uncertainty in the evidence for ALS, and highlight current discussions that will likely inform the next round of recommendations.