Blood Culture Use in Medical and Surgical Intensive Care Units and Wards.

Importance: Blood culture (BC) use benchmarks in US hospitals have not been defined.

Objective: To characterize BC use in adult intensive care units (ICUs) and wards in US hospitals.

Design, Setting, And Participants: A retrospective cross-sectional study of BC use in adult medical ICUs, medical-surgical ICUs, medical wards, and medical-surgical wards from acute care hospitals from the 4 US geographic regions was conducted.

Provider & nursing perspectives on the "panculture": opportunities for innovative diagnostic stewardship interventions.

Objective: To examine practices of providers and nursing staff in evaluating febrile patients and identify drivers of excessive diagnostic testing.

Design: Prospective multiple-choice surveys.

Setting: Inpatient areas and the Emergency Department at Rhode Island Hospital (RIH) in Providence, RI.

Microbes Causing Spinal Epidural Infection in Patients Who Use Drugs.

Background: The incidence of spine infections has increased due to the surge in injection drug use driven by the opioid epidemic. Few recent studies have evaluated the microbiology of spinal epidural infections among people who inject drugs compared to the microbiology of such infections among the general population.

Methods: We performed a retrospective chart review to identify patients with a spinal epidural abscess or phlegmon unrelated to recent spine surgery between 2015 and 2023.

Human Evolution, Microgravity, and Challenges Colonizing Mars.

Human colonization of Mars has captured the imagination of many. However, the challenges posed are immense. In microgravity, changes in human physiology, immune dysregulation, alterations of our microbiome, and enhanced virulence of various microbes are some of the barriers that stand in the way of a successful endeavor.