Importance: Respiratory pathogen testing has been a common deimplementation focus. The COVID-19 pandemic brought new considerations for respiratory testing; recent trends in testing rates are not well understood.
Objective: To measure trends in respiratory testing among encounters for acute respiratory infections among children and adolescents (aged <18 years) from 2016 to 2023, assess the association of COVID-19 with these trends, and describe associated cost trends.
Bone marrow edema-like lesions (BMEL) in the knee have been linked to the symptoms and progression of osteoarthritis (OA), a highly prevalent disease with profound public health implications. Manual and semi-automatic segmentations of BMELs in magnetic resonance images (MRI) have been used to quantify the significance of BMELs. However, their utilization is hampered by the labor-intensive and time-consuming nature of the process as well as by annotator bias, especially since BMELs exhibit various sizes and irregular shapes with diffuse signal that lead to poor intra- and inter-rater reliability.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: There is a lack of uniformity across hospitals in applying inpatient versus observation status for short-stay (<48 h) pediatric hospitalizations, with negative financial implications associated with observation. Children with medical complexity (CMC) represent a growing population and incur high costs of care. The financial implications of inpatient and observation status for CMC have not been studied.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The Child Opportunity Index (COI) comprehensively measures children's social determinants of health. We describe association between COI and outcomes after listing for heart transplantation.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective review of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) database for U.
Objectives: Primary mental health admissions are increasing across US children's hospitals. These patients may experience agitation requiring pharmacologic restraint. This study characterized pharmacologic restraint use in medical inpatient units by primary mental health diagnosis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The treatment of children with multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) related to SARS-CoV-2 infection involves immunomodulatory therapies such as IVIG and steroids. Anakinra, an interleukin-1 receptor inhibitor, has also been used, but its effectiveness is not established yet. As optimal regimens for MIS-C remain unknown, we aimed to assess the effect of anakinra in reducing hospital stay in patients with MIS-C.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMasked hypertension (MH) occurs when office blood pressure is normal, but hypertension is confirmed using out-of-office blood pressure measures. Hypertension is a risk factor for subclinical cardiovascular outcomes, including left ventricular hypertrophy, increased left ventricular mass index, carotid intima media thickness, and pulse wave velocity. However, the risk factors for ambulatory blood pressure monitoring defined MH and its association with subclinical cardiovascular outcomes are unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Inflammatory bowel disease is an inflammatory disorder that primarily impacts the gastrointestinal tract, leading to malnutrition and chronic microscopic intestinal blood loss. Uncontrolled systemic inflammation can impact other parts of the body, known as extraintestinal manifestations. Up to 25% of patients with inflammatory bowel disease are reported to have these complications in their skin, joints, bones, eyes, liver, lung, and pancreas (Rogler et al.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground/objective: Despite initiatives to reduce waste and spending, there is a gap in physician knowledge regarding the cost of commonly ordered items. We examined the relationship between pediatric hospitalists' knowledge of national medical waste reduction initiatives, self-reported level of cost-consciousness (the degree in which cost affects practice), and cost accuracy (how close an estimate is to its hospital cost) at a national level.
Methods: This cross-sectional study used a national, online survey sent to hospitalists at 49 children's hospitals to assess their knowledge of national medical waste reduction initiatives, self-reported cost consciousness, and cost estimates for commonly ordered laboratory studies, medications, and imaging studies.
: In the inpatient academic medical center, increased demand for clinical services often equates to an increased workload for trainees, which could have a positive or negative impact on their educational experience. In 2020, our academic medical center hired Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) to provide continuous additional overnight coverage for our neurology ward teaching service. We hypothesized that adding APPs and reducing overnight clinical workload for residents would have a positive impact on resident education.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Target organ damage (TOD) such as left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), abnormal pulse wave velocity, and elevated carotid intima-media thickness are common among adults with hypertension and are associated with overt cardiovascular events. The risk of TOD among children and adolescents with hypertension confirmed by ambulatory blood pressure monitoring is poorly understood. In this systematic review, we compare the risks of TOD among children and adolescents with ambulatory hypertension to normotensive individuals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objectives: A growing number of advanced practice providers (APPs) are entering neurologic practice, and educational initiatives focused on postgraduate training in neurology for these providers are growing in turn. Neurologic education in APP degree programs is not well defined, which limits the ability to tailor these initiatives to the specific needs of APPs. We aim to describe neurologic education in physician assistant (PA) degree programs to better inform these efforts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Rhabdomyolysis in children is a highly variable condition with presentations ranging from myalgias to more severe complications like acute renal failure. We sought to explore demographics and incidence of pediatric rhabdomyolysis hospitalizations and rates of associated renal failure, as our current understanding is limited.
Methods: This was a retrospective analysis using the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Kids' Inpatient Database to identify children hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of rhabdomyolysis.
Objective: Neighborhood conditions influence child health outcomes, but data examining association between local factors and hospital utilization are lacking. We determined if hospitals' mix of patients by neighborhood opportunity correlates with rehospitalization for common diagnoses at US children's hospitals.
Methods: We analyzed all discharges in 2018 for children ≤18 years at 47 children's hospitals for 14 common diagnoses.
Objective: The Surgical Training and Educational Platform (STEP) was developed by the American Society for Surgery of the Hand (ASSH) as a cost-effective set of surgical simulation modules designed to represent critical psychomotor skills in hand surgery. We hypothesize that increased training on these training modules, even with limited supervision, would improve resident performance on psychomotor skills.
Design: Baseline evaluation was conducted on four psychomotor skills to simulate surgical tasks: lag screw fixation, depth of plunge, skin graft harvest, and wrist arthroscopy.
Healthcare (Basel)
February 2022
(1) Background: Hong Kong is experiencing population aging, but there is little research on advance care planning. This research asks for community-dwelling older adults' views on advance care planning in order to provide a different angle to the results collected from nursing homes and hospitals. (2) Methods: The targeted respondents were people aged 55 or above.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: It is unclear which pharmacological agents, and at what dosage and timing, are most effective for venous thromboembolism (VTE) prophylaxis in patients with pelvic/acetabular fractures.
Methods: We searched the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Embase, Web of Science, EBSCO, and PubMed on October 3, 2020, for English-language studies of VTE prophylaxis in patients with pelvic/acetabular fractures. We applied no date limits.
Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease Type 1A (CMT1A) is caused by duplication of the PMP22 gene and is the most common inherited peripheral neuropathy. Although CMT1A is a dysmyelinating peripheral neuropathy, secondary axon degeneration has been suggested to drive functional deficits in patients. Given that SARM1 knockout is a potent inhibitor of the programmed axon degeneration pathway, we asked whether SARM1 knockout rescues neuromuscular phenotypes in CMT1A model (C3-PMP) mice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOrganizations have recognized that effective informal leadership is a source of competitive advantage and invest heavily in leadership development efforts. Moreover, because of historical shifts in the nature of work, this informal leadership often takes the form of inter-unit boundary spanning. Because of these two developments, discretionary boundary spanning (DBS) between units has increasingly become a critical, dynamic, bottom-up activity where individuals lacking formal authority step up and take on informal leadership responsibilities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The purpose of this study is to determine whether tranexamic acid (TXA) use was associated with lower rates of blood transfusion in patients undergoing pelvic and/or acetabular fracture surgery.
Methods: Four studies were included, 3 of which were included in the pooled data analysis for a total of 308 patients.
Results: The transfusion rate was significantly lower in the TXA group (44%) compared with the non-TXA group (57%) (P = 0.
Electronics for space applications have stringent requirements on both performance and radiation tolerance. The constant exposure to cosmic radiation damages and eventually destroys electronics, limiting the lifespan of all space-bound missions. Thus, as space missions grow increasingly ambitious in distance away from Earth, and therefore time in space, the electronics driving them must likewise grow increasingly radiation-tolerant.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: About 40% of men diagnosed with prostate cancer (Pca) are ≤65 years of age. This study evaluates the risk of second cancer among young Pca patients treated with surgery or radiation.
Materials And Methods: This is a retrospective review of 150,915 men aged ≤65 years at Pca diagnosis treated with surgery or radiation registered in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database between 1973 and 2014.