Publications by authors named "Bulger E"

Objectives: The goal of the current study was to assess the effectiveness of a peer integrated collaborative care intervention for postinjury outcomes.

Methods: Injury survivors ≥18 years of age were screened for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and severe postinjury concerns; screen-positive patients were randomized to the intervention versus enhanced usual care control conditions. The collaborative care intervention included peer support and care management.

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Background: Despite advances in trauma care, the effects of social determinants of health continue to be a barrier to optimal health outcomes. Health-related social needs (HRSNs), now the basis of a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services national screening program, may contribute to poor health outcomes, inequities, and low-value care, but the impact of HRSNs among injured patients remains poorly understood at the national level.

Methods: Using data from the nationally representative 2021 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, injured patients were matched with uninjured controls via coarsened exact matching on age and sex.

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Thirty-four per cent of deaths among Americans aged 1-46 are due to injury, and many of these deaths could be prevented if all hospitals performed as well as the highest-performing hospitals. The Institute of Medicine and the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine have called for learning health systems, with emphasis on clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) as a means of limiting preventable deaths. Reduction in mortality has been demonstrated when evidence-based trauma CPGs are adhered to; however, guidelines are variably updated, redundant, absent, inaccessible, or perceived as irrelevant.

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During development, early regionalization segregates lineages and directs diverse cell fates. Sometimes, however, distinct progenitors produce analogous cell types. For example, V2a neurons, are excitatory interneurons that emerge from different anteroposterior progenitors.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study explores the use of therapeutic limb hypothermia to reduce tissue injury during traumatic limb ischemia, focusing on its effects during damage control resuscitation in a swine model.
  • - Fifteen swine were subjected to a 6-hour resuscitation protocol, with one hindlimb cooled to either 5°C or 15°C, while the other limb remained uncooled for comparison; various physiological and tissue measurements were taken during this time.
  • - Results showed that cooling to 15°C lowered harmful metabolites in the tissues without increasing damage, while cooling to 5°C led to more muscle damage, suggesting that local hypothermia can help prevent ischemic injury but needs further study.
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Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) enhances the localization accuracy of neural activity measured with electroencephalography (EEG) while preserving EEG's high temporal resolution. However, the spatial resolution of reconstructed activity diminishes for deeper neural sources. In this study, we analyzed DOT-enhanced EEG localization of neural sources modeled at depths ranging from 11-25 mm in simulations.

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Background: Incorporating post-discharge data into trauma registries would allow for better research on patient outcomes, including disparities in outcomes. This pilot study tested a follow-up data collection process to be incorporated into existing trauma care systems, prioritizing low-cost automated response modalities.

Methods: This investigation was part of a larger study that consisted of two protocols with two distinct cohorts of participants who experienced traumatic injury.

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  • Injuries are a major cause of death in the U.S., and trauma systems ensure that injured patients receive proper care through trauma centers (TCs) with varying designations for resources but not specific surgical care.
  • A study analyzed Washington state's hospital data in 2016 to find patterns in surgical care differences between TCs and non-trauma centers (non-TCs) using unsupervised clustering methods.
  • Results showed that while surgical care features partially aligned with TC designations, factors like orthopedic procedures and patient demographics were significant in distinguishing hospitals, highlighting the need for optimized resource allocation in trauma systems.
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  • European surgeon training for trauma and emergency care lacks standardization, with variations influenced by cultural and organizational differences, especially in mentorship practices.
  • A survey conducted by yESTES revealed that 74% of surgeons primarily rely on informal mentorship, with significant gaps for early-career and female surgeons.
  • The study highlights the importance of integrating non-technical skills in mentorship while suggesting that surgical societies need to enhance their support for mentorship to improve overall quality and accessibility.
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Trauma activation fees are intended to help trauma centers cover the costs of providing lifesaving care at all times, but they have fallen under greater scrutiny because of a lack of regulation and wide variability in charges. We leveraged the federal Hospital Price Transparency rule to systematically describe trauma activation fees as captured in the Turquoise Health database for all Level I-III trauma centers nationally and across payer types. As of April 18, 2023, a total of 38 percent of US trauma centers published trauma activation fees.

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  • Acute limb ischaemia (ALI) is a critical condition that challenges pre-hospital resources and affects patient well-being and healthcare expenses.
  • Hypothermia has potential as a pre-hospital intervention to reduce tissue damage, but effective usage requires timely rescue of the affected limb.
  • The authors developed and tested a portable limb-cooling device that can work independently or alongside other medical techniques to enhance care for patients with ALI.*
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Background: Incorporating post-discharge data into trauma registries would allow for better research on patient outcomes, including disparities in outcomes. This pilot study tested a follow-up data collection process to be incorporated into existing trauma care systems, prioritizing low-cost automated response modalities.

Methods: This investigation was part of a larger study that consisted of two protocols with two distinct cohorts of participants who experienced traumatic injury.

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Necrotizing soft tissue infections are rare bacterial infections of the skin and soft tissues with a high morbidity and mortality rate, requiring prompt diagnosis and surgical intervention. These represent a spectrum of disease resulting in tissue necrosis that is rapidly progressive; however, they remain a diagnostic challenge because the average surgeon or emergency medicine provider may only see one or two over the course of their career. Diagnosis is largely clinical and based on subtle physical examination findings, physiologic instability, and laboratory derangements.

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Background: In the prehospital tranexamic acid (TXA) for traumatic brain injury (TBI) trial, TXA administered within 2 hours of injury in the out-of-hospital setting did not reduce mortality in all patients with moderate/severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). We examined the association between TXA dosing arms, neurologic outcome, and mortality in patients with intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) on computed tomography (CT).

Methods: This was a secondary analysis of the Prehospital Tranexamic Acid for TBI Trial ( ClinicalTrials.

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Background: Limited availability and poor quality of data in medical records and trauma registries impede progress to achieve injury-related health equity across the lifespan.

Methods: We used a Nominal Group Technique (NGT) in-person workgroup and a national web-based Delphi process to identify common data elements (CDE) that should be collected.

Results: The 12 participants in the NGT workgroup and 23 participants in the national Delphi process identified 10 equity-related CDE and guiding lessons for research on collection of these data.

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The National Trauma Research Action Plan project successfully engaged multidisciplinary experts to define opportunities to advance trauma research and has fulfilled the recommendations related to trauma research from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report. These panels identified more than 4,800 gaps in our knowledge regarding injury prevention and the optimal care of injured patients and laid out a priority framework and tools to support researchers to advance this field. Trauma research funding agencies and researchers can use this executive summary and supporting manuscripts to strategically address and close the highest priority research gaps.

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Objective: A growing evidence base supports stepped care interventions for the early treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after physical injury. Few investigations have examined the characteristics of patients who do and do not respond to these interventions.

Method: This investigation was a secondary analysis that used previously collected data from three randomized clinical trials of stepped care interventions (patient  = 498).

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Loss of Cdx2 in vivo leads to stunted development of the allantois, an extraembryonic mesoderm-derived structure critical for nutrient delivery and waste removal in the early embryo. Here, we investigate how CDX2 dose-dependently influences the gene regulatory network underlying extraembryonic mesoderm development. By engineering human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) consisting of wild-type (WT), heterozygous (CDX2-Het), and homozygous null CDX2 (CDX2-KO) genotypes, differentiating these cells in a 2D gastruloid model, and subjecting these cells to single-nucleus RNA and ATAC sequencing, we identify several pathways that are dose-dependently regulated by CDX2 including VEGF and non-canonical WNT.

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In the nascent mesoderm, TBXT expression must be precisely regulated to ensure that cells exit the primitive streak and pattern the anterior-posterior axis, but how varying dosage informs morphogenesis is not well understood. In this study, we define the transcriptional consequences of TBXT dosage reduction during early human gastrulation using human induced pluripotent stem cell models of gastrulation and mesoderm differentiation. Multi-omic single-nucleus RNA and single-nucleus ATAC sequencing of 2D gastruloids comprising wild-type, TBXT heterozygous or TBXT null human induced pluripotent stem cells reveal that varying TBXT dosage does not compromise the ability of a cell to differentiate into nascent mesoderm, but instead directly influences the temporal progression of the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition with wild type transitioning first, followed by TBXT heterozygous and then TBXT null.

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Proper regulation of gene dosage is critical for the development of the early embryo and the extraembryonic tissues that support it. Specifically, loss of leads to stunted development of the allantois, an extraembryonic mesoderm-derived structure critical for nutrient delivery and waste removal in the early embryo. In this study, we investigate how CDX2 dose-dependently influences the gene regulatory network underlying extraembryonic mesoderm development.

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Extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR) is a form of intensive life support that has seen increasing use globally to improve outcomes for patients who experience out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Hospitals with advanced critical care capabilities may be interested in launching an ECPR program to offer this support to the patients they serve; however, to do so, they must first consider the significant investment of resources necessary to start and sustain the program. The existing literature describes many single-center ECPR programs and often focuses on inpatient care and patient outcomes in hospitals with cardiac surgery capabilities.

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Article Synopsis
  • Researchers wanted to see if special care for PTSD helped injured people from different backgrounds better than usual treatments.
  • They looked at 350 non-white and/or Hispanic patients and compared how well they did after getting extra support versus regular care.
  • Results showed that the special care helped reduce PTSD symptoms more for non-white/Hispanic patients after 6 months, but not as much for white/non-Hispanic patients.
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