Background: Good communication between health authorities and citizens is crucial for adherence to preventive measures during a pandemic. Crisis communication often appeals to worries about negative consequences for oneself or others. While worry can motivate protective behavior, it can also be overwhelming and lead to irrational choices or become a mental health problem.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHigh adherence to the Mediterranean diet (MD) has been associated with lower incidence of cardiovascular disease, increased HDL-cholesterol levels, and decreased triglycerides (TG), and total and LDL cholesterol levels. We aimed to assess the association of MD adherence at baseline with the lipid profile both cross-sectionally and prospectively in a sample of apparently healthy community-dwelling subjects. We conducted three cross-sectional studies using data from follow-ups 1 (FU1, 2009-2012), 2 (FU2, 2014-2017), and 3 (FU3, 2018-2021) of CoLaus|PsyCoLaus, a population-based sample from Lausanne, Switzerland.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAim: To assess whether the Mediterranean diet (MD) is associated with lower levels of type 2 diabetes (T2D) in a non-Mediterranean population.
Methods: Cross-sectional analysis of follow-ups 1 (FU1, 2009-2012, = 4398, 45.7% men, 57.
Aim Of The Study: While hospitals are adopting strategies designed to increase the overall efficiency of the healthcare system, physicians are facing expanding requirements. Such changes in work environment add new psychosocial and physical stressors. Building on a previous quantitative time-motion study, we conducted a qualitative study to better understand the work experience of internal medicine residents.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEfficient management of hospitalized patients requires carefully planning each stay by taking into account patients' pathologies and hospital constraints. Therefore, the ability to accurately estimate length of stays allows for better interprofessional tasks coordination, improved patient flow management, and anticipated discharge preparation. This article presents how we built and evaluated a predictive model of length of stay based on clinical data available upon admission to a division of internal medicine.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMedical informatics played a decisive role in the management of the health crisis linked to COVID-19, in particular for the support of hospital clinical, governance and communication activities. In this article, we present the experience of CHUV's Internal Medicine Service in these three areas, and analyse some critical points of our information system revealed by the crisis. The development, implementation, and maintenance of new IT tools during the crisis is a challenge.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSummary: Both dynamic correlations in protein sidechain motions during molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and evolutionary correlations in multiple sequence alignments (MSAs) of homologous proteins may reveal functionally important residues. We developed the R package Bios2cor that provides a unique framework to investigate and, possibly, integrate both analyses. Bios2cor starts with an MSA or an MD trajectory and computes correlation/covariation scores between positions in the MSA or between sidechain dihedral angles or rotamers in the MD trajectory.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImmune checkpoint inhibitors have radically changed oncology by significantly improving prognosis and survival of many patients, even at an advanced or metastatic stage. Some patients undergoing immunotherapy develop adverse immune-related events, presenting a toxicity spectrum that can affect any organ, separately or simultaneously, with different intensities depending on the treatment used and patient characteristics. We hereby suggest a diagnostic and therapeutic approach that any internist, general practitioner or emergency doctor should have facing digestive, cardiac and pulmonary toxicities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIs it worth improving the effectiveness of a treatment by modulating the prescription schedule? Data show that the preferred administration timing depends on biological rhythms. Taking this into consideration can improve efficiency or reduce side effects. Food also plays a role.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe dynamic structure of proteins is essential for their functions and may include large conformational transitions which can be studied by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. However, details of these transitions are difficult to automatically track. To facilitate their analysis, we developed two scores of correlation between sidechain dihedral angles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFApplication of Chemcatcher® to monitor organotin compounds [monobutyltin (MBT), dibutyltin (DBT) and tributlytin (TBT)] in sea water has been little developed. Prior to the measurement of the time-weighted average water concentrations (TWAC), a calibration step is required to determine sampling rates (Rs) which is usually assessed in a flow-through laboratory pilot where experimental conditions are well controlled. This paper investigates the effect of the water matrix (tap water vs real sea water from the harbor of Port Camargue in France) and organotin concentrations on the uptake rates of organotin compounds.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is putting our healthcare system under exceptional pressure, given the number of affected patients. In a context of limited human healthcare resources, senior medical students represent a valuable workforce that can quickly be mobilized for patient care. This is the approach followed in Switzerland and other countries, in several outpatient structures or inpatient services, including the Department of Internal Medicine, of the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe rapid progression of COVID-19 is an organizational challenge for all hospitals. To secure the patient overflow, the Department internal medicine of the University Hospital of Lausanne increased nurse and medical workforces as well as bed capacity by 65 %, with extraordinary help from other departments. The implemented crisis management stood upon three pillars : a crisis management team, steering documents and internal communication.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: The vast majority of residents' working time is spent away from patients. In hospital practice, many factors may influence the resident's working day structure.Using an innovative method, we aimed to compare working time allocation among internal medicine residents using time-motion observations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMany diseases affect the oral cavity. Therefore, the mouth is an organ that internists should observe carefully. Hereafter we present five illustrations of oral semiology that reflect a systemic condition: a strawberry tongue, an ulceration, a labial lesion, a gingival hyperplasia and a gingival hyperpigmentation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRiverbank filtration (RBF) as a barrier of pathogenic microorganisms and organic micropollutants recently has been proven capable of removing sulfonamides. However, the study about the effect of redox conditions on biodegradation of common and persistent sulfonamides in RBF is limited and the response of microbial communities to sulfonamides stress during RBF is unknown. In this study, two column set-ups (with residence time 5 days and 11 days respectively), simulating different redox conditions of riverbank filtration systems, were operated for seven months to investigate 1) the long-term effect of redox conditions on ng∙L level sulfonamides (sulfapyridine, sulfadiazine, sulfamethoxazole, sulfamethazine, sulfaquinoxaline) removal, and 2) the microbial community evolution represented by the phylogenetic and metabolic function shift under non-lethal selective pressures of sulfonamides.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChemokines and their receptors (members of the GPCR super-family) are involved in a wide variety of physiological processes and diseases; thus, understanding the specificity of the chemokine receptor family could help develop new receptor specific drugs. Here, we explore the evolutionary mechanisms that led to the emergence of the chemokine receptors. Based on GPCR hierarchical classification, we analyzed nested GPCR sets with an eigen decomposition approach of the sequence covariation matrix and determined three key residues whose mutation was crucial for the emergence of the chemokine receptors and their subsequent divergence into homeostatic and inflammatory receptors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAims: We evaluated the effectiveness of a multidisciplinary transition plan to reduce early readmission among heart failure patients.
Methods And Results: We conducted a before-and-after study in a tertiary internal medicine department, comparing 3 years of retrospective data (pre-intervention) and 13 months of prospective data (intervention period). Intervention was the introduction in 2013 of a transition plan performed by a multidisciplinary team.
Aim: To determine the effectiveness of nursing discharge planning interventions on health-related outcomes for older inpatients discharged home.
Background: Inadequate discharge planning for the ageing population poses significant challenges for health services. Effective discharge planning interventions have been examined in several studies, but little information is available on nursing interventions for older people.
Background: Recent implementation of electronic health records (EHR) has dramatically changed medical ward organization. While residents in general internal medicine use EHR systems half of their working time, whether computer usage impacts residents' workflow remains uncertain. We aimed to observe the frequency of task-switches occurring during resident's work and to assess whether computer usage was associated with task-switching.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Little current evidence documents how internal medicine residents spend their time at work, particularly with regard to the proportions of time spent in direct patient care versus using computers.
Objective: To describe how residents allocate their time during day and evening hospital shifts.
Design: Time and motion study.
Background: Elevated red blood cell distribution width (RDW) is a valid predictor of outcome in acute heart failure (AHF). It is unknown whether elevated RDW remains predictive in AHF patients with either preserved left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) ≥50% or reduced LVEF (<50%).
Methods And Results: Prospective local registry including 402 consecutive hospitalized AHF patients without acute coronary syndrome or need of intensive care.
JBI Database System Rev Implement Rep
September 2016
Background: Inadequate discharge planning for the growing elderly population poses significant challenges for health services. Effective discharge planning interventions have been examined in several studies, but little information is available on nursing's role or the specific components of these interventions. Despite the research published on the importance of discharge planning, the impact on patient's health outcomes still needs to be proven in practice.
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