Publications by authors named "Amy Summer"
Article Synopsis
- Many care management programs for chronic lung disease fail to effectively reduce hospitalizations because they don't address the specific mechanisms causing them.
- The study examined the experiences of 22 patients with chronic lung disease who were hospitalized, focusing on common underlying issues that led to their acute exacerbations.
- Key findings included factors like difficulty managing symptoms at home, barriers to accessing healthcare, ongoing functional limitations, and mental health issues, which often existed long before hospitalization.
Article Synopsis
- The study aimed to analyze how often and in what ways healthcare providers use choice frames when discussing care options with surrogate decision-makers in the ICU.
- Researchers conducted a content analysis of 101 recorded meetings between clinicians and surrogates, identifying key decision episodes related to patient care, including mechanical ventilation and goals of care.
- Findings revealed that clinicians predominantly used default framing, where a default option is set unless an alternative is chosen, and often presented polar questions, leading to a preference for discussing both potential losses and gains in decisions.
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates how inaccuracies in patients' expectations of their health affect their quality of life, focusing on those with severe COPD over a 24-month period.
- It found that many patients held overly optimistic views about their future symptoms, which led to a decline in their health-related quality of life within the first 3 months.
- Despite a diverse group of 207 participants, there was no clear link between demographic factors and the accuracy of health expectations, suggesting that communication with healthcare providers may be inadequate.
Background: Inpatient health care facilities restricted inpatient visitation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There is no existing evidence of how they communicated these policies to the public nor the impact of their communication choices on public perception.
Objective: This study aims to describe patterns of inpatient visitation policies during the initial peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and the communication of these policies to the general public, as well as to identify communication strategies that maximize positive impressions of the facility despite visitation restrictions.
Stakeholders' Views on Reducing Psychological Distress in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.
J Pain Symptom Manage
January 2022
Context: Psychological distress is highly prevalent among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the top palliative care priority identified by such patients, and associated with poor outcomes. However, patients with COPD rarely receive care for psychological distress.
Objectives: To identify the barriers and opportunities to reducing psychological distress among patients with COPD in the specialty pulmonary setting.
Background: Clinicians' use of choice architecture, or how they present options, systematically influences the choices made by patients and their surrogate decision makers. However, clinicians may incompletely understand this influence.
Objective: To assess physicians' abilities to predict how common choice frames influence people's choices.