Oral Medications for Treating Agitation in a Safety Net Emergency Department

Can emergency physicians adopt using oral medications as first-line treatment for agitation primarily from intoxication?In this quality improvement study evaluating 460 600 ED encounters, the proportion of patients receiving their first sedating medication orally increased from 7% to 31% after 1 year of the intervention, while time to adequate sedation and adverse events, measured prospectively during implementation, were not different between oral and intramuscular routes.The findings suggest that emergency physicians successfully adopted oral medications for treating agitation and that time to sedation and safety were similar regardless of route, supporting use of oral medications as first-line agitation treatments when feasible.

Corresponding Author: Jon B. Cole, MD, Department of Emergency Medicine, Hennepin Healthcare, 701 Park Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55415 (jon.cole@hcmed.org).

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