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Documentation of Acute Compartment Syndrome at an Academic Health-Care Center

¹ c/o Elaine P. Henze, Medical Editor, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, 4940 Eastern Avenue, #A672, Baltimore, MD 21224-2780. E-mail address for E.P. Henze: ehenze1{at}jhmi.edu

Investigation performed at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland

The authors did not receive grants or outside funding in support of their research or preparation of this manuscript. They did not receive payments or other benefits or a commitment or agreement to provide such benefits from a commercial entity. No commercial entity paid or directed, or agreed to pay or direct, any benefits to any research fund, foundation, educational institution, or other charitable or nonprofit organization with which the authors are affiliated or associated.

Methods: Notes and consent forms for thirty consecutive patients with adequate follow-up who had undergone fasciotomy for the treatment of compartment syndrome were reviewed for legibility, notation of the time and date, and documentation of the presence of core physical examination and history findings, including pain, paresthesias, tenseness, pain on passive stretch, sensory deficit, motor deficit, pulses, compartment pressures, and diastolic blood pressure.

Results: Documentation was inadequate for twenty-one patients (70%): the notes and consent forms were not timed or not dated (or both) for nine patients (30%), and the notes were at least partially illegible for sixteen patients (53%). The documentation was incomplete with regard to the presence of paresthesias in eleven patients, pain on passive stretch in ten, sensory deficit in nine, motor deficit in eight, pulses in seven, pain in five, and tenseness in three. The documentation was incomplete with regard to the blood and compartment pressures for sixteen and six patients, respectively.

Conclusions: The documentation of the core history and physical examination findings was inadequate in this series of patients with compartment syndrome. On the basis of the results of this study, and through an organizational systems approach, we have instituted for our residents, nursing staff, and faculty an educational program on the documentation of compartment syndrome in patients who are at risk for this condition.

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