Publications by authors named "Brian Fuller"

Objectives: Sepsis is a time-sensitive condition, and many rural emergency department (ED) sepsis patients are transferred to tertiary hospitals. The objective of this study was to determine whether longer transport times during interhospital transfer are associated with higher sepsis mortality or increased hospital length-of-stay (LOS).

Methods: A cohort of rural adult (age ≥ 18y) sepsis patients transferred between hospitals were identified in the TELEmedicine as a Virtual Intervention for Sepsis Care in Emergency Departments (TELEVISED) parent study.

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Context: Postintubation sedation is a critical intervention for patients undergoing mechanical ventilation. Research in the intensive care unit (ICU) and adult emergency department (ED) demonstrates that appropriate postintubation sedation has a significant impact on patient outcomes. There are minimal published data regarding postintubation sedation for pediatric ED patients.

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This study's purpose is to better understand pediatric intensive care nursing perspectives on sedative management as a precursor to improving aspects of sedation assessment, titration, and communication. We queried nurses in the pediatric intensive care unit at a 40+ bed quaternary care using an electronic survey about their experiences with sedation management. Data was collected using REDCap and statistical analyses were performed to assess for differences between experience levels in areas.

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Background: Mechanical ventilation is a common life-saving procedure but can lead to serious complications, including ARDS and oxygen toxicity. Nonadherence to lung-protective ventilation guidelines is common. We hypothesized that a respiratory therapist-driven mechanical ventilation bundle could increase adherence to lung-protective ventilation and decrease the incidence of pulmonary complications in the ICU.

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Article Synopsis
  • Sepsis is more severe in rural and socially vulnerable areas, and this study investigates whether telehealth consultations (tele-ED) can help address these disparities.
  • The research involved analyzing data from 1191 patients across 23 rural emergency departments, revealing that providers in high social vulnerability index (SVI) counties were less likely to use tele-ED for sepsis treatment.
  • Key findings indicate that housing and transportation issues significantly impacted tele-ED usage, suggesting that while tele-ED can improve access to care, it doesn't fully eliminate the treatment disparities faced by these vulnerable communities.
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Objectives: Fear of enacted stigma (fear of discrimination or being treated unfairly) is associated with decreased health care-seeking behaviors among patients with opioid use disorder (OUD). We sought to describe the prevalence of fear of enacted stigma among patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with OUD and to test whether experiencing greater compassion from ED staff is associated with lower fear of enacted stigma.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study in the ED of an academic medical center between February and August 2023.

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Objectives: There is currently conflicting data as to the effects of hypercapnia on clinical outcomes among mechanically ventilated patients in the emergency department (ED). These conflicting results may be explained by the degree of acidosis. We sought to test the hypothesis that hypercapnia is associated with increased in-hospital mortality and decreased ventilator-free days at lower pH, but associated with decreased in-hospital mortality and increased ventilator-free days at higher pH, among patients requiring mechanical ventilation in the emergency department (ED).

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Background: Periprosthetic fractures following total hip arthroplasty (THA) often occur in the early postoperative period. Recent data has indicated that early revisions are associated with higher complication rates, particularly periprosthetic joint infection (PJI). The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of timing of periprosthetic fracture surgery on complication rates.

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Background: Dexmedetomidine (DEX) is a centrally acting sympatholytic sedative. Abundant evidence from the intensive care unit and other settings demonstrates that the use of DEX is associated with improved sedation-related outcomes. There is a paucity of data on the use and efficacy of DEX in the emergency department (ED).

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Background: Awareness with paralysis (AWP) is memory recall during neuromuscular blockade (NMB) and can cause significant psychological harm. Decades of effort and rigorous trials have been conducted to prevent AWP in the operating room, where prevalence is 0.1-0.

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Purpose: To evaluate early measurement of the arterial to end-tidal carbon dioxide (PaCO-PetCO) gap, a surrogate for physiologic dead space, and its association with clinical outcomes in intubated adults in the emergency department (ED).

Materials And Methods: Observational cohort study of invasively mechanically ventilated adults in an academic medical center (years 2009 to 2016). The association of the PaCO-PetCO gap was evaluated with respect to clinical outcomes; the primary outcome was in-hospital mortality.

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Introduction: Delivering preventive chemotherapy through mass drug administration (MDA) is a central approach in controlling or eliminating several neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). Treatment coverage, a primary indicator of MDA performance, can be measured through routinely reported programmatic data or population-based coverage evaluation surveys. Reported coverage is often the easiest and least expensive way to estimate coverage; however, it is prone to inaccuracies due to errors in data compilation and imprecise denominators, and in some cases measures treatments offered as opposed to treatments swallowed.

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Objectives: Sepsis is associated with significant mortality. Telehealth may improve the quality of early sepsis care, but the use and impact of telehealth applications for sepsis remain unclear. We aim to describe the telehealth interventions that have been used to facilitate sepsis care, and to summarize the reported effect of telehealth on sepsis outcomes.

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Background: Effective mass drug administration (MDA) is the cornerstone in the elimination of lymphatic filariasis (LF) and a critical component in combatting all neglected tropical diseases for which preventative chemotherapy is recommended (PC-NTDs). Despite its importance, MDA coverage, however defined, is rarely investigated systematically across time and geography. Most commonly, investigations into coverage react to unsatisfactory outcomes and tend to focus on a single year and health district.

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Despite etiologic and severity heterogeneity in neutropenic sepsis, management is often uniform. Understanding host response clinical subphenotypes might inform treatment strategies for neutropenic sepsis. In this retrospective two-hospital study, we analyzed whether temperature trajectory modeling could identify distinct, clinically relevant subphenotypes among oncology patients with neutropenia and suspected infection.

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Article Synopsis
  • Dexmedetomidine (DEX) is being used more for sedation across various clinical settings, showing potential benefits over traditional sedatives like benzodiazepines, but there’s limited research on its use specifically in the emergency department (ED).
  • A systematic review of the literature identified 35 relevant studies, revealing DEX’s effectiveness for medical imaging and some evidence for procedural sedation, although the studies varied widely in their methods and outcomes.
  • Overall, the findings suggest that DEX is likely safe but can cause occasional bradycardia and hypotension; more high-quality research is needed to clarify its use and effectiveness in the ED.
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Article Synopsis
  • The study evaluated the long-term effectiveness of a lung-protective ventilation strategy for mechanically ventilated patients in the emergency department (ED), comparing outcomes before and after implementing the protocol.
  • During the intervention period, the average tidal volume used significantly decreased from 8.2 mL/kg to 6.5 mL/kg, and the use of low tidal volume ventilation dramatically rose from 46.8% to 96.2%.
  • The findings indicated that this ventilation strategy led to a notable reduction in hospital mortality from 35.9% to 19.1% and increased the number of ventilator-free, hospital-free, and ICU-free days for patients.
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Study Objective: To test the hypothesis that provider-to-provider tele-emergency department care is associated with more 28-day hospital-free days and improved Surviving Sepsis Campaign (SSC) guideline adherence in rural emergency departments (EDs).

Methods: Multicenter (n=23), propensity-matched, cohort study using medical records of patients with sepsis from rural hospitals in an established, on-demand, rural video tele-ED network in the upper Midwest between August 2016 and June 2019. The primary outcome was 28-day hospital-free days, with secondary outcomes of 28-day inhospital mortality and SSC guideline adherence.

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Purpose: To evaluate practice patterns, efficacy, and safety of push dose pressors (PDP) in critically ill patients outside of the operating room (OR) at a large academic medical center.

Materials And Methods: This was a single-center, retrospective cohort study (June 2018 to July 2020) conducted at a 1273-bed academic medical center. The primary outcome was efficacy, defined as a 25% increase in systolic blood pressure, and the cohort was analyzed according to PDP response (i.

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Background: Mechanically ventilated patients have experienced greater periods of prolonged deep sedation during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Multiple studies from the pre-COVID era demonstrate that early deep sedation is associated with worse outcome. Despite this, there is a lack of data on sedation depth and its impact on outcome for mechanically ventilated patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Background: The management of mechanical ventilation critically impacts outcome for patients with acute respiratory failure. Ventilator settings in the early post-intubation period may be especially influential on outcome. Low tidal volume ventilation in the prehospital setting has been shown to impact the provision of low tidal volume after admission and influence outcome.

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Objectives: Deep sedation in the emergency department (ED) is common, increases deep sedation in the ICU, and is negatively associated with outcome. Limiting ED deep sedation may, therefore, be a high-yield intervention to improve outcome. However, the feasibility of conducting an adequately powered ED-based clinical sedation trial is unknown.

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: Mechanically ventilated patients have experienced greater periods of prolonged deep sedation during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Multiple studies from the pre-COVID era demonstrate that early deep sedation is associated with worse outcome. Despite this, there is a lack of data on sedation depth and its impact on outcome for mechanically ventilated patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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