Researchers examine accuracy of adult body weight estimates in the emergency department
Knowing a patient’s weight is necessary for many weight-based medications such as thrombolytics, anticoagulants and numerous cardiovascular medications. Scaling drugs to a patient’s weight prevents adverse events from overtreatment and treatment failure due to underdosing. Inaccurate weight estimations may lead to inaccurate drug doses, which could cause patient harm. However, in the emergency department (ED) during resuscitative care, measuring weight is often impossible. Moreover, little is known about the relative accuracy of different methods currently used to weigh patients during emergency care. For example, ...
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