Identifying the Most Important Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry Publications in 2020 Using a Novel Literature Assessment Instrument.

Background: As the science of consultation-liaison psychiatry advances, the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry's Guidelines and Evidence-Based Medicine Subcommittee reviews articles of interest to help academy members remain familiar with the latest in evidence-based practice.

Objective: We identify the 10 most important articles for clinical practice in consultation-liaison psychiatry from 2020 using the new Importance and Quality instrument for assessing scientific literature.

Methods: The subcommittee published annotated abstracts for 97 articles on the academy website in 2020.

Reducing Workplace Absenteeism Caused by Work Stress in a Health Maintenance Organization Department of Psychiatry.

Introduction: It is well established that work stress is a major economic burden not only in lost work productivity but also in increased health care utilization and costs. However, there is little research into effective treatment models for work stress.

Objective: To retrospectively examine the effectiveness of a psychiatric pilot quality improvement program in improving the return-to-work rate in patients in a health maintenance organization who had work stress and took medical leave from work.

Prognostic Significance of Postoperative Subsyndromal Delirium.

Background: Whether postoperative subsyndromal delirium (SSD) is a separate syndrome from delirium and has clinical relevance is not well understood.

Objectives: We sought to investigate SSD in older surgical patients and to determine its prognostic significance.

Methods: We performed a prospective cohort study of patients who were 65 years or older and were scheduled for noncardiac surgery.

Updates in Psychosomatic Medicine: 2014.

Background: The amount of literature published annually related to psychosomatic medicine is vast; this poses a challenge for practitioners to keep up-to-date in all but a small area of expertise.

Objectives: To introduce how a group process using volunteer experts can be harnessed to provide clinicians with a manageable selection of important publications in psychosomatic medicine, organized by specialty area, for 2014.

Methods: We used quarterly annotated abstracts selected by experts from the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine and the European Association of Psychosomatic Medicine in 15 subspecialties to create a list of important articles.

Marked reduction in length of stay for patients with psychiatric emergencies after implementation of a comanagement model.

Objectives: Patients with psychiatric emergencies often spend excessive time in an emergency department (ED) due to limited inpatient psychiatric bed capacity. The objective was to compare traditional resident consultation with a new model (comanagement) to reduce length of stay (LOS) for patients with psychiatric emergencies. The costs of this model were compared to those of standard care.

An update on delirium in the postoperative setting: prevention, diagnosis and management.

Delirium is a serious and pervasive problem in the postoperative setting. Research to date has identified a number of key risk factors implicated in the development of delirium after surgical intervention, including advanced age, pre-existing cognitive impairment, lower pre-morbid functional status and history of psychiatric illness. Efforts to prevent postoperative delirium in the form of multi-component programs and prophylactic administration of medications have yielded some positive results.

Management of psychiatric problems in critically ill patients.

Critical care units have become essential elements in modern medicine. These units reflect the highest levels of scientific and technological advance in medicine. Within these units, however, lie significant psychiatric challenges for patients and staff.