Publications by authors named "L Berman"

Background: Gastrostomy tube (GT) placement is one of the most common procedures performed by pediatric surgeons; however, no current national clinical data registry exists to assess GT-specific care processes and morbidity. The American College of Surgeons (ACS) National Surgical Quality Improvement Program-Pediatric (NSQIPPed) GT Pilot was created to provide participants with these data. This study aims to analyze these data to identify variability in perioperative practices and post-operative morbidity in pediatric GT operations and to provide targets for future quality improvement (QI) interventions.

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Without careful dissection of the ways in which biases can be encoded into artificial intelligence (AI) health technologies, there is a risk of perpetuating existing health inequalities at scale. One major source of bias is the data that underpins such technologies. The STANDING Together recommendations aim to encourage transparency regarding limitations of health datasets and proactive evaluation of their effect across population groups.

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Importance: Conclusions vary substantially among studies examining associations between area-based social determinants of health (SDOH) and pediatric health disparities based on the selected patient population and SDOH index. Most national studies use zip codes, which encompass a wide distribution of communities, limiting the generalizability of findings.

Objectives: To characterize the distributions of composite SDOH indices for pediatric surgical patients within a national sample of academic children's hospitals and to assess SDOH index precision in classifying patients at similar levels of disadvantage.

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Article Synopsis
  • The obesity epidemic has increased the need for metabolic and bariatric surgery (MBS) among adolescents, but there's limited data on the effectiveness of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) protocols for improving outcomes.
  • A comprehensive ERAS pathway was implemented for adolescents undergoing laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG), focusing on pre-operative carbohydrate loading, pain management, and early mobilization; various outcome measures were tracked.
  • Results showed that the post-ERAS group had significant improvements in time to oral intake, lower usage of rescue anti-emetics, and shorter hospital stays compared to the pre-ERAS group, while overall opioid use and post-operative pain levels remained unaffected.
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