Global Emergency Medicine: A Review of the Literature from 2018

Abstract

ObjectivesThe Global Emergency Medicine Literature Review (GEMLR) conducts a systematic annual search of peer‐reviewed and gray literature relevant to global emergency medicine (EM) to identify, review, and disseminate the most rigorously conducted and widely relevant research in global EM.MethodsAn electronic search of PubMed, a comprehensive retrieval of articles from specific journals, and search of the gray literature were conducted. Title and abstracts retrieved by these searches were screened by a total of 22 reviewers based on their relevance to the field of global EM, across the domains of disaster and humanitarian response (DHR), emergency care in resource‐limited settings (ECRLS), and emergency medicine development (EMD). All articles that were deemed relevant by at least one reviewer, their editor, and the managing editor underwent formal scoring of overall methodologic quality and importance to global EM. Two independent reviewers scored all articles; editors provided a third score in cases of widely discrepant scores.ResultsA total of 19,102 articles were identified by the searches and, after screening and removal of duplicates, a total of 517 articles underwent full review. Twenty‐five percent were categorized as DHR, 61% as ECRLS, and 15% as EMD. Inter‐rater reliability testing between the reviewers revealed a Cohen's kappa score of 0.213 when considering the complete score or 0.426 when excluding the more subjective half of the score. A total of 25 articles scored higher than 17.5 of 20; these were selected for a full summary and critique.ConclusionsIn 2018, the total number of articles relevant to global EM that were identified by our search continued to increase. Studies and reviews focusing on pediatric infections, several new and traditionally underrepresented topics, and landscape reviews that may help guide clinical care in new settings represented the majority of top‐scoring articles. A shortage of articles related to the development of EM as a specialty was identified.

Global emergency medicine: A scoping review of the literature from 2020

“…1 For the past 15 years, the Global Emergency Medicine Literature Review (GEMLR) has worked to assist clinicians and policymakers active in global emergency medicine (EM) in this regard by conducting a semiquantitative, team-based screening and review of literature relevant to this domain. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] The GEMLR team follows a framework of global EM, which emphasizes clinical care and the expansion of EM into new areas where EM is not a well developed or established medical specialty, especially in humanitarian contexts and other resource-limited settings. 17 The emphasis of the review is on original research (OR) and review articles (RE) that have relatively immediate applicability to frontline patient care and to the development and expansion of EM as a clinical specialty requiring its own specialized knowledge base and practice patterns.…”

Global Emergency Medicine: A Review of the Literature From 2019

“…Relative to the 2018 GEMLR, 14 the number of articles identified by our automated and manual search processes increased by 22%, but the number ultimately screened in by our reviewers’ and editors’ detailed assessment of titles and abstracts decreased by 45%. This likely reflects our increased attention to relevance of the published works to global EM and strict adherence to inclusion and exclusion criteria.…”

“…This current 2019 GEMLR was conducted using an updated methodology from last year's 2018 GEMLR review, most notably with more clear and granular "impact" criteria. 14 The complete methods are available in the GEMLR procedure manual, available as Data Supplement S1, Appendix S1 (available as supporting information in the online version of this paper, which is available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.c om/doi/10.1111/acem.14107/full). All participants in the review are unpaid volunteers selected based on their experience providing frontline emergency care and education around the world.…”

“…T he Global Emergency Medicine Literature Review (GEMLR) has been actively working since 2005 to improve the clinical practice of emergency medicine (EM) worldwide by identifying and disseminating the most current and important EM research from global settings where EM is still developing as a mature domain of medicine. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] Given the overwhelming amount of medical literature that is published daily, the GEMLR team attempts to identify, screen, evaluate, and consolidate the literature relevant to global EM in a format that can be easily digested by clinicians and researchers. A diverse panel of reviewers, editors, and advisors with varied experience in global EM works together to produce this annual review, starting with a systematic electronic and manual search of the published literature.…”

Global emergency medicine: A scoping review of the literature from 2021

“…The Global Emergency Medicine Literature Review (GEMLR) was created in 2005 to assist clinicians, researchers, and policy makers in identifying key current literature most likely to influence the practice of GEM through its annual review. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] The GEMLR Group has grown along with GEM to serve as a mentoring and networking hub for GEM practitioners around the world. 18 The team changes and grows annually, and term-limits force turnover in leadership positions to allow for an increasingly diverse team.…”