Pulsed Red and Blue Photobiomodulation for the Treatment of Thigh Contusions and Soft Tissue Injury: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Context: Contusion and soft tissue injuries are common in sports. Photobiomodultion, light and laser therapy, is an effective aid to increase healing rates and improve function after various injury mechanisms. However, it is unclear how well photobiomodulation improves function after a contusion soft tissue injury.

Efficacy of Sustained Acoustic Medicine as an Add-on to Traditional Therapy in Treating Sport-related Injuries : Case Reports.

Context: Musculoskeletal injuries are prevalent in sports, and the application of Sustain Acoustic Medicine (SAM) as a home-use add-on therapy to reduce pain and to increase the probability of athletes returning to sports was evaluated in a case series.

Objectives: To examine the improvements in pain and return to function of athletes using SAM in conjunction with traditional therapies after sustaining sports-related musculoskeletal injuries.

Introduction: Traditional treatments such as rest, physical therapy, manual therapy, a combination of rest, ice compression, and elevation (RICE) are standard of care for musculoskeletal injuries and do not provide adequate accelerated healing to return athletes to activity.

Kant, Linnaeus, and the economy of nature.

Ecology arguably has roots in eighteenth-century natural histories, such as Linnaeus's economy of nature, which pressed a case for holistic and final-causal explanations of organisms in terms of what we'd now call their environment. After sketching Kant's arguments for the indispensability of final-causal explanation merely in the case of individual organisms, and considering the Linnaean alternative, this paper examines Kant's critical response to Linnaean ideas. I argue that Kant does not explicitly reject Linnaeus's holism.

The well-being valuation model: a method for monetizing the nonmarket good of individual well-being.

The objective of this research is to advance the evaluation and monetization of well-being improvement programs, offered by population health management companies, by presenting a novel method that robustly monetizes the entirety of well-being improvement within a population. This was achieved by utilizing two employers' well-being assessments with medical and pharmacy administrative claims (2010-2011) across a large national employer ( = 50,647) and regional employer ( = 6170) data sets. This retrospective study sought to monetize both direct and indirect value of well-being improvement across a population whose medical costs are covered by an employer, insurer, and/or government entity.

What's Mine is Yours: Evaluation of Shared Well-Being Among Married Couples and the Dyadic Influence on Individual Well-Being Change.

Objective: To evaluate the relationship between partner well-being and outcomes of chronically diseased individuals participating in an employer sponsored well-being improvement program.

Methods: Using the Actor Partner Interdependence Model, we evaluated whether prior partner well-being was associated with well-being change among 2025 couples. Logistic regression models were then used to explore how spousal well-being risks relate to development and elimination of risks among program participants.

Integrating Well-Being Information and the Multidimensional Adaptive Prediction Process to Estimate Individual-Level Future Health Care Expenditure Levels.

Decades of research exist focusing on the utility of self-reported health risk and status data in health care cost predictive models. However, in many of these studies a limited number of self-reported measures were considered. Compounding this issue, prior research evaluated models specified with a single covariate vector and distribution.

Impact of a scalable care transitions program for readmission avoidance.

Objectives: To evaluate the Care Transition Solution (CTS) as a means to improve quality through reduction of preventable hospital readmissions among patients with readmission-sensitive conditions subject to penalties imposed by the Affordable Care Act.

Study Design: A retrospective quasi-experimental evaluation of the impact of the CTS among admitted patients diagnosed with heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and/or pneumonia (CMS readmission-penalty diagnoses) in 14 acute care hospitals in Texas. The program, designed for scalable delivery, incorporated identification of high readmission-risk patients, assessment of individual needs, medication reconciliation, discharge planning, care coordination, and telephonic postdischarge follow-up.

The Value of a Well-Being Improvement Strategy: Longitudinal Success across Subjective and Objective Measures Observed in a Firm Adopting a Consumer-Driven Health Plan.

Objective: The objective of this study is to evaluate effectiveness of a firm's 5-year strategy toward improving well-being while lowering health care costs amidst adoption of a Consumer-Driven Health Plan.

Methods: Repeated measures statistical models were employed to test and quantify association between key demographic factors, employment type, year, individual well-being, and outcomes of health care costs, obesity, smoking, absence, and performance.

Results: Average individual well-being trended upward by 13.

Predicting Health Care Cost Transitions Using a Multidimensional Adaptive Prediction Process.

Managing population health requires meeting individual care needs while striving for increased efficiency and quality of care. Predictive models can integrate diverse data to provide objective assessment of individual prospective risk to identify individuals requiring more intensive health management in the present. The purpose of this research was to develop and test a predictive modeling approach, Multidimensional Adaptive Prediction Process (MAPP).

Regional economic activity and absenteeism: a new approach to estimating the indirect costs of employee productivity loss.

This paper presents a new approach to estimating the indirect costs of health-related absenteeism. Productivity losses related to employee absenteeism have negative business implications for employers and these losses effectively deprive the business of an expected level of employee labor. The approach herein quantifies absenteeism cost using an output per labor hour-based method and extends employer-level results to the region.

Comparing the contributions of well-being and disease status to employee productivity.

Objective: To compare employee overall well-being to chronic disease status, which has a long-established relationship to productivity, as relative contributors to on-the-job productivity.

Methods: Data from two annual surveys of three companies were used in longitudinal analyses of well-being as a predictor of productivity level and productivity change among 2629 employees with diabetes or without any chronic conditions.

Results: Well-being was the most significant predictor of productivity cross-sectionally in a model that included disease status and demographic characteristics.

Impact of a chronic disease management program on hospital admissions and readmissions in an Australian population with heart disease or diabetes.

Chronic disease management programs (CDMPs) were introduced in Australia to reduce unnecessary health care utilization by the growing population with chronic conditions; however, evidence of effectiveness is needed. This study evaluated the impact of a comprehensive CDMP, My Health Guardian (MHG), on rate of hospital admissions, readmissions, and average length of hospital stay (ALOS) for insured individuals with heart disease or diabetes. Primary outcomes were assessed through retrospective comparison of members in MHG (treatment; n=5053) to similar nonparticipating members (comparison; n=23,077) using a difference-in-differences approach with the year before program commencement serving as baseline and the subsequent 12 or 18 months serving as the program periods.

Exploring robust methods for evaluating treatment and comparison groups in chronic care management programs.

Evaluation of chronic care management (CCM) programs is necessary to determine the behavioral, clinical, and financial value of the programs. Financial outcomes of members who are exposed to interventions (treatment group) typically are compared to those not exposed (comparison group) in a quasi-experimental study design. However, because member assignment is not randomized, outcomes reported from these designs may be biased or inefficient if study groups are not comparable or balanced prior to analysis.

The impact of proactive chronic care management on hospital admissions in a German senior population.

An increase in chronic disease prevalence is contributing to health care cost growth and decreased quality of life in industrialized nations worldwide. Inadequate management of chronic diseases is a leading cause of hospitalizations and, thus, avoidable expenditures. In this study, we evaluated the impact of nurse-delivered care calls, the primary intervention of a proactive chronic care management (CCM) program, in a population aged 65 and older in Germany.

Avoiding randomization failure in program evaluation, with application to the Medicare Health Support program.

We highlight common problems in the application of random treatment assignment in large-scale program evaluation. Random assignment is the defining feature of modern experimental design, yet errors in design, implementation, and analysis often result in real-world applications not benefiting from its advantages. The errors discussed here cover the control of variability, levels of randomization, size of treatment arms, and power to detect causal effects, as well as the many problems that commonly lead to post-treatment bias.

Probing dimer interface stabilization within a four-helix bundle of the GrpE protein from Escherichia coli via internal deletion mutants: conversion of a dimer to monomer.

Insight into protein stability and folding remains an important area for protein research, in particular protein-protein interactions and the self-assembly of homodimers. The GrpE protein from Escherichia coli is a homodimer with a four-helix bundle at the dimer interface. Each monomer contributes a helix-loop-helix to the bundle.

The impact of a proactive chronic care management program on hospital admission rates in a German health insurance society.

Hospital admissions are the source of significant health care expenses, although a large proportion of these admissions can be avoided through proper management of chronic disease. In the present study, we evaluate the impact of a proactive chronic care management program for members of a German insurance society who suffer from chronic disease. Specifically, we tested the impact of nurse-delivered care calls on hospital admission rates.

Increased adherence to cardiac standards of care during participation in cardiac disease management programs.

Adherence to cardiovascular disease standards of care is critically important for minimizing the risk of mortality and morbidity for individuals with coronary heart disease (CHD) and heart failure (HF). The purpose of this study was to assess the ability of cardiac disease management (DM) programs to assist members with their adherence to evidence-based medicine for cardiovascular diseases. A total of 20,202 members with CHD and/or HF were evaluated 12 months prior to the start of DM programs and during their first 12 months of participation in the programs.

Aaron O. Wells, MD and the Medical Committee for Human Rights: reflections on a life of conscience.

The southern civil rights movement compelled Dr. Aaron Wells and other doctors to find ways to use their skills in support of that movement. Through the Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR), healthcare workers provided a medical presence for civil rights protesters in the south during the 1960s.

The use of levo-alpha-acetylmethadol (LAAM) in methadone patients who have not achieved heroin abstinence.

Levo-alpha-acetylmethadol (LAAM) pharmacotherapy was offered to twelve patients who continued illicit opioid abuse after > or = eleven months in methadone maintenance treatment. After 6-8 weeks on LAAM, plasma concentrations of the norLAAM metabolite varied significantly by LAAM dosing day, plasma adrenocorticotropin (ACTH) concentrations were significantly increased compared to methadone, and two of the seven subjects remaining in LAAM treatment were free of illicit opioids and nonprescribed methadone. After one year, one of five remaining subjects was using illicit opioids, and three were using non-prescribed methadone.