Loading...
The Ottawa ankle rules identify patients at high risk for malleolar and midfoot fractures to determine which patients require x-ray studies. To test these guidelines in clinical practice, researchers compared the proportion of patients with acute ankle injuries who were referred for radiologic studies before and after the rules were introduced at a university hospital emergency department.
The intervention encouraged physicians to use the decision rules with a brief lecture, a handout, a pocket card, and two posters mounted in the emergency department. During the five months before the intervention, 83 percent of ankle injury patients were referred for ankle radiography and 31 percent were referred for foot radiography. Five months after the…