Survey on Cardiologists' Perspectives on Cardiac Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS).

: Cardiac point of care ultrasound (POCUS) has been used with increasing frequency. As a result of this trend, this study sought to characterize cardiologists' perspectives on cardiac POCUS. An 18-question survey on demographics, cardiac POCUS clinical practice, education, and infrastructure was distributed by 16 academic medical centers.

Predictors of Patient-reported and Pharmacy Refill Measures of Maintenance Inhaler Adherence in Veterans with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Suboptimal adherence to inhaled medications in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) remains a challenge. To examine the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics and medication beliefs associated with adherence measured by self-report and pharmacy data. A cross-sectional analysis of data from a prospective observational cohort study of patients with COPD was completed.

Massive Left Ventricular Thrombus After ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction in a Young Man With Factor V Leiden.

• STEMI caused by obstructive CAD is uncommon in young adults. • Factor V Leiden and antipsychotic medication use may increase the risk for ACS. • LV thrombus is a common complication of acute anterior STEMI.

The Quality and Safety of Sedation and Monitoring in Adults Undergoing Nonoperative Transesophageal Echocardiography.

Sedation is an essential component of the transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) procedure for patient comfort. The use and the clinical implications of cardiologist-supervised (CARD-Sed) versus anesthesiologist-supervised sedation (ANES-Sed) are unknown. We reviewed nonoperative TEE records from a single academic center over a 5-year period and identified CARD-Sed and ANES-Sed cases.

Cardiac Arrest during Transesophageal Echocardiogram (TEE) due to Acute Right Ventricular Failure.

The case of a patient who suffered cardiac arrest while undergoing transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) is presented here. A 75-year-old man with moderate right ventricular (RV) dysfunction and pulmonary hypertension became bradycardic and hypotensive after receiving propofol for procedural sedation. His profound hypotension ultimately led to a pulseless electrical activity (PEA) cardiac arrest.

Diverse community leaders' perspectives about quality primary healthcare and healthcare measurement: Qualitative community-based participatory research.

Background: Healthcare quality measurements in the United States illustrate disparities by racial/ethnic group, socio-economic class, and geographic location. Redressing healthcare inequities, including measurement of and reimbursement for healthcare quality, requires partnering with communities historically excluded from decision-making. Quality healthcare is measured according to insurers, professional organizations and government agencies, with little input from diverse communities.

Financial Impact of Universal Precepting in Family Medicine Residency Clinics.

Background And Objectives: Precepting methods have significant impact on the financial viability of family medicine residency programs. Following an adverse event, four University of Minnesota Family Medicine residency clinics moved from using Medicare's Primary Care Exception (PCE) and licensure precepting (LP) to a "universal precepting" method in which preceptors see every patient face to face. Variation in the implementation of universal precepting created a natural experiment of its financial impact.

Primary care clinicians' perspectives about quality measurements in safety-net clinics and non-safety-net clinics.

Background: Quality metrics, pay for performance (P4P), and value-based payments are prominent aspects of the current and future American healthcare system. However, linking clinic payment to clinic quality measures may financially disadvantage safety-net clinics and their patient population because safety-net clinics often have worse quality metric scores than non-safety net clinics. The Minnesota Safety Net Coalition's Quality Measurement Enhancement Project sought to collect data from primary care providers' (PCPs) experiences, which could assist Minnesota policymakers and state agencies as they create a new P4P system.

Further examination of embedded performance validity indicators for the Conners' Continuous Performance Test and Brief Test of Attention in a large outpatient clinical sample.

Objective: Assessing test performance validity is a standard clinical practice and although studies have examined the utility of cognitive/memory measures, few have examined attention measures as indicators of performance validity beyond the Reliable Digit Span. The current study further investigates the classification probability of embedded Performance Validity Tests (PVTs) within the Brief Test of Attention (BTA) and the Conners' Continuous Performance Test (CPT-II), in a large clinical sample.

Method: This was a retrospective study of 615 patients consecutively referred for comprehensive outpatient neuropsychological evaluation.