Advance Care Planning in a Geriatric Primary Care Clinic: A Retrospective Chart Review.

Purpose:: Advance care planning (ACP) is theorized to benefit both the patient and their family when end of life is near as well as earlier in the course of serious illness. However, ACP remains underutilized, and little is known about the nature of ACP documentation in geriatrics practices. The study investigated the prevalence and nature of ACP documentation within a geriatric primary care clinic.

Advance care planning: Making it easier for patients (and you).

Helpful resources, many of them online, are available to facilitate the process. And this time-intensive service is now billable under 2 CPT codes.

Frequency of Adverse Events Before, During, and After Hospital Admission.

Objectives: Adverse events (AEs) are unintended physical injuries resulting from or contributed to by medical or surgical care. We determined the frequency and type of AEs before, during, and after hospital admission.

Methods: We conducted a cohort study of 296 adult hospital patients.

The Effect of Contact Precautions on Frequency of Hospital Adverse Events.

Objective: To determine whether use of contact precautions on hospital ward patients is associated with patient adverse events

Design: Individually matched prospective cohort study

Setting: The University of Maryland Medical Center, a tertiary care hospital in Baltimore, Maryland

Methods: A total of 296 medical or surgical inpatients admitted to non-intensive care unit hospital wards were enrolled at admission from January to November 2010. Patients on contact precautions were individually matched by hospital unit after an initial 3-day length of stay to patients not on contact precautions. Adverse events were detected by physician chart review and categorized as noninfectious, preventable and severe noninfectious, and infectious adverse events during the patient's stay using the standardized Institute for Healthcare Improvement's Global Trigger Tool.

Cardiac biomarkers in heart failure.

Background: Heart failure is a syndrome characterized by the inability of the heart to meet the body's circulatory demands. Heart failure is a growing health issue worldwide and the prevalence of heart failure is expected to rise as populations age. Therapies and interventions for a variety of cardiac conditions continue to advance and biomarkers will play an increasing role in patient management.