Practice Guidelines for the Emergency Room
Many hospitals and physican organizations are developing "practice guidelines" or "clinical policies" - documents which define how certain matters should be addressed by medical personnel.
Here is a link to the clinical policies issued by the American College of Emergency Physicians. The ACEP says that these documents "describe the College’s policies on the clinical management of presenting symptoms, specific illnesses or injuries."
Here is a list of what they have available:
*Clinical Policy for the Initial Approach to Patients Presenting With Acute Toxic Ingestion or Dermal or Inhalation Exposure
*Practice Parameter: Neuroimaging in the Emergency Patient Presenting With Seizure (Summary Statement)
*Clinical Policy for the Initial Approach to Patients Presenting With Altered Mental Status
*Clinical Policy: Critical Issues in the Evaluation and Management of Adult Patients Presenting With Suspected Acute Myocardial Infarction or Unstable Angina
*Clinical Policy: Critical Issues for the Initial Evaluation and Management of Patients Presenting With a Chief Complaint of Nontraumatic Acute Abdominal Pain
*Clinical Policy: Critical Issues in the Evaluation and Management of Patients Presenting With Syncope
*Clinical Policy for the Management and Risk Stratification of Community-Acquired Pneumonia in Adults in the Emergency Department
*Critical Issues in the Evaluation and Management of Patients Presenting to the Emergency Department with Acute Headache
*Clinical Policy: Neuroimaging and Decisionmaking in Adult Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in the Acute Setting
*Critical Issues in the Initial Evaluation and Management of Patients Presenting to the Emergency Department in Early Pregnancy
*Clinical Policy: Critical Issues in the Evaluation and Management of Adult Patients Presenting With Suspected Pulmonary Embolism
*Clinical Policy: Critical Issues in the Evaluation and Management of Adult Patients Presenting With Suspected Lower-Extremity Deep Venous Thrombosis
*Clinical Policy for Children Younger Than Three Years Presenting to the Emergency Department With Fever
*Clinical Policy: Critical Issues in the Evaluation of Adult Patients Presenting to the Emergency Department With Acute Blunt Abdominal Trauma
*Clinical Policy: Critical Issues in the Evaluation and Management of Adult Patients Presenting to the Emergency Department With Seizures
*Clinical Policy: Evidence-Based Approach to Pharmacologic Agents Used in Pediatric Sedation and Analgesia in the Emergency Department
*Clinical Policy: Procedural Sedation and Analgesia in the Emergency Department
This documents are not just checklists. For example, the policy concerning assessing mild TBI in adults is 19 pages long.
These documents can be a lot of help in determining the merits of these cases.