Publications by authors named "Judith Hwang"

Background: Clinical determination of patients at high risk of poor surgical outcomes is complex and may be supported by clinical tools to summarize the patient's own personalized electronic health record (EHR) history and vitals data through predictive risk models. Since prior models were not readily available for EHR-integration, our objective was to develop and validate a risk stratification tool, named the Assessment of Geriatric Emergency Surgery (AGES) score, predicting risk of 30-day major postoperative complications in geriatric patients under consideration for urgent and emergency surgery using pre-surgical existing electronic health record (EHR) data.

Methods: Patients 65-years and older undergoing urgent or emergency non-cardiac surgery within 21 hospitals 2017-2021 were used to develop the model (randomly split: 80% training, 20% test).

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Complications are common after surgery, highlighting the need for innovations that reduce postsurgical morbidity and mortality. In this report, we describe the design, development, and implementation of an Enhanced Recovery After Surgery program in the Kaiser Permanente Northern California integrated health care delivery system. This program was implemented and disseminated in 2014, targeting patients who underwent elective colorectal resection and those who underwent emergent hip fracture repair across 20 Medical Centers.

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Importance: Novel approaches to perioperative surgical care focus on optimizing nutrition, mobility, and pain management to minimize adverse events after surgical procedures.

Objective: To evaluate the outcomes of an enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) program among 2 target populations: patients undergoing elective colorectal resection and patients undergoing emergency hip fracture repair.

Design, Setting, And Participants: A pre-post difference-in-differences study before and after ERAS implementation in the target populations compared with contemporaneous surgical comparator groups (patients undergoing elective gastrointestinal surgery and emergency orthopedic surgery).

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Objective: Simulation technologies are used to assess and teach competencies through the provision of reproducible stimuli. They have exceptional utility in assessing responses to clinical stimuli that occur sporadically or infrequently. In this article, the authors describe the utility of emerging simulation technologies, and discuss critical issues in simulator-based skills assessment and appropriate results analysis.

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