Advancing Point-of-Care Testing by Application of Machine Learning Techniques and Artificial Intelligence.

The promise of artificial intelligence has generated enthusiasm among patients, health care professionals, and technology developers who seek to leverage its potential to enhance the diagnosis and management of an increasing number of chronic and acute conditions. Point-of-care testing increases access to care because it enables care outside of traditional medical settings. Collaboration among developers, clinicians, and end users is an effective best practice for solving clinical problems.

Point-of-care testing preferences 2020-2022: Trends over the years.

Background: The use of point-of-care (POC) tests prior to the COVID-19 pandemic was relatively infrequent outside of the health care context. Little is known about how public opinions regarding POC tests have changed during the pandemic.

Methods: We redeployed a validated survey to uncompensated volunteers to assess preferences for point-of-care testing (POCT) benefits and concerns between June and September 2022.

Sampling of healthcare professionals' perspective on point-of-care technologies from 2019-2021: A survey of benefits, concerns, and development.

Point-of-care technology (POCT) plays a vital role in modern healthcare by providing a fast diagnosis, improving patient management, and extending healthcare access to remote and resource-limited areas. The objective of this study was to understand how healthcare professionals in the United States perceived POCTs during 2019-2021 to assess the decision-making process of implementing these newer technologies into everyday practice. A 5-point Likert scale survey was sent to respondents to evaluate their perceptions of benefits, concerns, characteristics, and development of point-of-care technologies.

Application of Machine Learning Models to Biomedical and Information System Signals From Critically Ill Adults.

Background: Machine learning (ML)-derived notifications for impending episodes of hemodynamic instability and respiratory failure events are interesting because they can alert physicians in time to intervene before these complications occur.

Research Question: Do ML alerts, telemedicine system (TS)-generated alerts, or biomedical monitors (BMs) have superior performance for predicting episodes of intubation or administration of vasopressors?

Study Design And Methods: An ML algorithm was trained to predict intubation and vasopressor initiation events among critically ill adults. Its performance was compared with BM alarms and TS alerts.

COVID-19 and the Transformation of Intensive Care Unit Telemedicine.

The concept of telecritical care has evolved over several decades. ICU Telemedicine providers using both the hub-and-spoke ICU telemedicine center and consultative service delivery models offered their services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Telemedicine center responses were more efficient, timely, and widely used than those of the consultative model.

2021 Patient Preferences for Point of Care Testing Survey: More Acceptance and Less Concern.

Background: The evolving opinions of our community members provide insights into how end-users perceive the value and identify key point-of-care test (POCT) characteristics.

Methods: We deployed our validated 45-item English-language survey to uncompensated volunteers and compared the results from 1264 respondents in 2021 with those obtained in 2020.

Results: Average responses for items regarding the benefits of POCTs demonstrated that the 2021 respondents indicated agreement with all 14 potential benefits.

COVID-19: a gray swan's impact on the adoption of novel medical technologies.

The COVID-19 pandemic offers a unique context and opportunity to investigate changes in healthcare professional perceptions towards the adoption of novel medical technologies, such as point-of-care technologies (POCTs). POCTs are a nascent technology that has experienced rapid growth as a result of COVID-19 due to their ability to increase healthcare accessibility via near-patient delivery, including at-home. We surveyed healthcare professionals before and during COVID-19 to explore whether the pandemic altered their perceptions about the usefulness of POCTs.

Point-of-care testing, your cardiologist, and affairs of the heart.

Background: Point-of-care testing (POCT) has applications across medical specialties and holds promise to improve patient care. While cardiovascular medicine has been attractive for POCT applications in recent years, little is known about how cardiovascular health professionals perceive them.

Objective: The objective of our study was to examine differences in perceptions and attitudes towards POCTs between cardiovascular health professionals compared to other healthcare professionals.

Understanding Healthcare Professionals' Perspectives on Point-of-Care Testing.

Point-of-care testing (POCT) is an emerging technology that provides crucial assistance in delivering healthcare. The COVID-19 pandemic led to the accelerated importance of POCT technology due to its in-home accessibility. While POCT use and implementation has increased, little research has been published about how healthcare professionals perceive these technologies.

Patient Preferences for Point-of-Care Testing: Survey Validation and Results.

Background: Studies of current opinion of our community members for the characteristics, mode, and location of use, use cases, and overall enthusiasm for point-of-care testing (POCT) diagnosis and management tools are needed.

Study Design And Methods: Qualitative research methods were used to develop, refine, and evaluate hardcopy and electronic versions of a 45-item English language survey. The accuracy of the instrument was measured by recorded structured interview, and its precision was measured by comparison to its administration to a group of uncompensated volunteers.

Validation of an Automatic Tagging System for Identifying Respiratory and Hemodynamic Deterioration Events in the Intensive Care Unit.

Objective: Predictive models for critical events in the intensive care unit (ICU) might help providers anticipate patient deterioration. At the heart of predictive model development lies the ability to accurately label significant events, thereby facilitating the use of machine learning and similar strategies. We conducted this study to establish the validity of an automated system for tagging respiratory and hemodynamic deterioration by comparing automatic tags to tagging by expert reviewers.

A multi-institutional partnership catalyzing the commercialization of medical devices and biotechnology products.

The commercialization of medical devices and biotechnology products is characterized by high failure rates and long development lead times particularly among start-up enterprises. To increase the success rate of these high-risk ventures, the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UML) and University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) partnered to create key academic support centers with programs to accelerate entrepreneurship and innovation in this industry. In 2008, UML and UMMS founded the Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center (M2D2), which is a business and technology incubator that provides business planning, product prototyping, laboratory services, access to clinical testing, and ecosystem networking to medical device and biotech start-up firms.

Regionalization of Critical Care in the United States: Current State and Proposed Framework From the Academic Leaders in Critical Care Medicine Task Force of the Society of Critical Care Medicine.

Objectives: The Society of Critical Care Medicine convened its Academic Leaders in Critical Care Medicine taskforce on February 22, 2016, during the 45th Critical Care Congress to develop a series of consensus papers with toolkits for advancing critical care organizations in North America. The goal of this article is to propose a framework based on the expert opinions of critical care organization leaders and their responses to a survey, for current and future critical care organizations, and their leadership in the health system to design and implement successful regionalization for critical care in their regions.

Data Sources And Study Selection: Members of the workgroup convened monthly via teleconference with the following objectives: to 1) develop and analyze a regionalization survey tool for 23 identified critical care organizations in the United States, 2) assemble relevant medical literature accessed using Medline search, 3) use a consensus of expert opinions to propose the framework, and 4) create groups to write the subsections and assemble the final product.

Workforce, Workload, and Burnout in Critical Care Organizations: Survey Results and Research Agenda.

Objectives: This report provides analyses and perspective of a survey of critical care workforce, workload, and burnout among the intensivists and advanced practice providers of established U.S. and Canadian critical care organizations and provides a research agenda.

Vaping-Associated Respiratory Distress Syndrome: Case Classification and Clinical Guidance.

Unlabelled: Exposure to vaping is associated with a growing list of respiratory syndromes including an acute progressive form with life-threatening hypoxemic respiratory failure and pathologic changes of lung injury termed vaping-associated respiratory distress syndrome.

Data Sources: Center from Disease Control, Departments of Public Health, MEDLINE (via PubMed), and the Cochrane Library.

Study Selection Data Extraction And Data Synthesis: Cases, series, and public health reports of cases that met the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention case definition of vaping-associated respiratory disease were extracted by an author with perfect verification by a second.

Battling Intensivist Burnout: A Role for Workload Management.

Burnout syndrome is an increasingly common phenomenon that threatens our critical care workforce and the well-being of its members. Burnout syndrome can be conceived of as a workforce manifestation of chronic workload and workforce capacity imbalance. This study explores the role of workload management tools that can address workload as a complement to the resilience-based countermeasures that seek to increase worker capacity.

Evolution of the Intensive Care Unit Telemedicine Value Proposition.

Advances in clinical information sciences, telecommunication technologies, electronic health records, early warning systems, automated acuity assessment, and clinician communication support systems have allowed current-generation intensive care (ICU) telemedicine systems to address the inefficiencies of the failed advice-upon-request ICU telemedicine model. Value is related to the ability of health care systems to leverage ICU telemedicine resources to provide care. Local financial benefits of ICU telemedicine program implementation depend on changing behavior to better focus on activities that reduce the duration of critical illness and length of stay.

Comparative Effectiveness of Proton Pump Inhibitors vs Histamine Type 2 Receptor Blockers for Preventing Clinically Important Gastrointestinal Bleeding During Intensive Care: A Population-Based Study.

Background: Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) and histamine type 2 receptor blockers (H2Bs) are used for stress ulcer prophylaxis. Although the PPIs have greater potency for acid suppression, their relative effectiveness for preventing clinically important GI bleeding (CIGIB) has not been established. The goal of this study was to determine whether prophylactic PPIs were associated with lower risk of CIGIB than H2Bs among critically ill adults.