Development of a Complex Care Transition Team to Improve the Transition of Patients With Complex Care Needs to the Community.

Purpose: Health care systems have historically struggled to provide adequate care for patients with complex care needs that often result in overuse of hospital and emergency department resources. Patients with complex care needs generally have increased expenses, longer length of hospital stays, an increased need for care management resources during hospitalization, and high readmission rates. Mayo Clinic in Arizona aimed to ensure successful transitions for hospitalized patients with complex care needs to the community by developing a complex care transition team (CCTT) program.

Esophageal Actinomycosis Presenting as an Obstructive Esophageal Mass.

Esophageal actinomycosis is a rare type of esophageal infection, with only approximately 24 cases previously reported in the United States. Most of these cases were described as erosions or ulcers when examined endoscopically. We present a 47-year-old woman who presented with dysphagia.

Combating obesity through healthy eating behavior: a call for system dynamics optimization.

Poor eating behavior has been identified as one of the core contributory factors of the childhood obesity epidemic. The consequences of obesity on numerous aspects of life are thoroughly explored in the existing literature. For instance, evidence shows that obesity is linked to incidences of diseases such as heart disease, type-2 diabetes, and some cancers, as well as psychosocial problems.

Predictive value of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) nasal swab PCR assay for MRSA pneumonia.

Pneumonia due to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is associated with poor outcomes and frequently merits empirical antibiotic consideration despite its relatively low incidence. Nasal colonization with MRSA is associated with clinical MRSA infection and can be reliably detected using the nasal swab PCR assay. In this study, we evaluated the performance of the nasal swab MRSA PCR in predicting MRSA pneumonia.

Guideline-concordant antibiotic therapy and clinical outcomes in healthcare-associated pneumonia.

Background: The 2005 ATS/IDSA guidelines defined healthcare-associated pneumonia (HCAP) as a novel category of pneumonia in patients with significant healthcare exposure in whom the risk of drug resistant bacteria may be higher. In this study, we compare clinical outcomes in patients with HCAP who were treated with guideline-concordant antibiotic regimens with those who were not.

Methods: Medical records of 100 patients meeting HCAP criteria admitted to an academic tertiary care hospital between January 2009 and January 2011 were retrospectively reviewed.