Objectives: Providers vary in their impact on clinical outcomes, but this is rarely accounted for in healthcare research. By failing to identify the provider responsible for a patient's care, investigators miss an opportunity to account for nonrandom variation in outcomes. Prior methods of identifying responsible providers have relied on manual chart review, which is time-consuming and expensive, or analysis of claims data, which has been demonstrated to be inaccurate.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEthical issues arise in the context of implementation science that may differ from those encountered in other research settings. This report, developed out of a workshop convened by the Center for Translation Research and Implementation Science within the United States National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, identifies six key themes that are important to the assessment of ethical dimensions of implementation science. First, addressing ethical challenges in implementation science does not require new ethical principles, commitments, or regulations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Allergic sensitization to mold is a risk factor for poor asthma outcomes, but whether it accounts for disparities in asthma outcomes according to race or socioeconomic status is not well-studied.
Objective: To identify factors associated with allergic sensitization to molds and evaluate associations of sensitization to molds with asthma exacerbations after stratifying by race.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of adults with asthma who had an outpatient visit to a large health system between January 1, 2017 and June 30, 2023 and received aeroallergen testing to Aspergillus fumigatus, Penicillium, Alternaria, and Cladosporium.
Importance: Centralizing deceased organ donor management and organ recovery into donor care units (DCUs) may mitigate the critical organ shortage by positively impacting donation and recipient outcomes.
Objective: To compare donation and lung transplant outcomes between 2 common DCU models: independent (outside of acute-care hospitals) and hospital-based.
Design, Setting, And Participants: This is a retrospective cohort study of Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network deceased donor registry and lung transplant recipient files from 21 US donor service areas with an operating DCU.
Some United States organ procurement organizations transfer deceased organ donors to donor care units (DCUs) for recovery procedures. We used Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network data, from April 2017 to June 2021, to describe the proximity of adult deceased donors after brain death to DCUs and understand the impact of donor service area (DSA) boundaries on transfer efficiency. Among 19 109 donors (56.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To evaluate the association of race with proportion of time in deep sedation among mechanically ventilated adults.
Design: Retrospective cohort study from October 2017 to December 2019.
Setting: Five hospitals within a single health system.
Supply-demand mismatch of ward resources ("ward capacity strain") alters care and outcomes. Narrow strain definitions and heterogeneous populations limit strain literature. Evaluate the predictive utility of a large set of candidate strain variables for in-hospital mortality and discharge destination among acute respiratory failure (ARF) survivors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Mortality prediction for intensive care unit (ICU) patients frequently relies on single ICU admission acuity measures without accounting for subsequent clinical changes.
Objective: Evaluate novel models incorporating modified admission and daily, time-updating Laboratory-based Acute Physiology Score, version 2 (LAPS2) to predict in-hospital mortality among ICU patients.
Research Design: Retrospective cohort study.
Although the mainstay of sepsis treatment is timely initiation of broad-spectrum antimicrobials, treatment delays are common, especially among patients who develop hospital-onset sepsis. The time of day has been associated with suboptimal clinical care in several contexts, but its association with treatment initiation among patients with hospital-onset sepsis is unknown. Assess the association of time of day with antimicrobial initiation among ward patients with hospital-onset sepsis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Mortality prediction for intensive care unit (ICU) patients frequently relies on single acuity measures based on ICU admission physiology without accounting for subsequent clinical changes.
Objectives: Evaluate novel models incorporating modified admission and daily, time-updating Laboratory-based Acute Physiology Scores, version 2 (LAPS2) to predict in-hospital mortality among ICU patients.
Research Design: Retrospective cohort study.
Objectives: Few surveys have focused on physician moral distress, burnout, and professional fulfilment. We assessed physician wellness and coping during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design: Cross-sectional survey using four validated instruments.
The adoption of prone positioning for patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) has historically been poor. However, in mechanically ventilated patients with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) ARDS, proning has increased. Understanding the factors influencing this change is important for further expanding and sustaining the use of prone positioning in appropriate clinical settings.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Recent studies have revealed high rates of burnout among respiratory therapists (RTs), which has implications for patient care and outcomes as well as for the health care workforce. We sought to better understand RT well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study was to determine rates and identify determinants of well-being, including burnout and professional fulfillment, among RTs in ICUs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Use of prone positioning in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) from COVID-19 may be greater than in patients treated for ARDS before the pandemic. However, the magnitude of this increase, sources of practice variation, and the extent to which use adheres to guidelines is unknown.
Objectives: To compare prone positioning practices in patients with COVID-19 ARDS versus ARDS treated before the pandemic.
Patients with hospital-acquired sepsis (HAS) experience higher mortality and delayed care compared with those with community-acquired sepsis. Capacity strain, the extent to which demand for hospital resources exceeds availability, thus impacting patient care, is a possible mechanism underlying antimicrobial delays for HAS but has not been studied. Assess the association of ward census with the timing of antimicrobial initiation among ward patients with HAS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Prior studies have demonstrated suboptimal adherence to lung protective ventilation among patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome. A common barrier to providing this evidence-based practice is diagnostic uncertainty. We sought to test the hypothesis that patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome due to coronavirus disease 2019, in whom acute respiratory distress syndrome is easily recognized, would be more likely to receive low tidal volume ventilation than concurrently admitted acute respiratory distress syndrome patients without coronavirus disease 2019.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Behavioral economic insights have yielded strategies to overcome implementation barriers. For example, default strategies and accountable justification strategies have improved adherence to best practices in clinical settings. Embedding such strategies in the electronic health record (EHR) holds promise for simple and scalable approaches to facilitating implementation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose Of Review: Resource limitation, or capacity strain, has been associated with changes in care delivery, and in some cases, poorer outcomes among critically ill patients. This may result from normal variation in strain on available resources, chronic strain in persistently under-resourced settings, and less commonly because of acute surges in demand, as seen during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
Recent Findings: Recent studies confirmed existing evidence that high ICU strain is associated with ICU triage decisions, and that ICU strain may be associated with ICU patient mortality.
Background: Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a common, but under-recognised, critical illness syndrome associated with high mortality. An important factor in its under-recognition is the variability in chest radiograph interpretation for ARDS. We sought to train a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) to detect ARDS findings on chest radiographs.
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