A prospective cluster-randomized trial to implement the Canadian CT Head Rule in emergency departments.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The Canadian CT Head Rule was developed to allow physicians to be more selective when ordering computed tomography (CT) imaging for patients with minor head injury. We sought to evaluate the effectiveness of implementing this validated decision rule at multiple emergency departments.

Methods

We conducted a matched-pair cluster-randomized trial that compared the outcomes of 4531 patients with minor head injury during two 12-month periods (before and after) at hospital emergency departments in Canada, six of which were randomly allocated as intervention sites and six as control sites. At the intervention sites, active strategies, including education, changes to policy and real-time reminders on radiologic requisitions were used to implement the Canadian CT Head Rule

SUBMITTER: Stiell IG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2950184 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature