A Randomized Trial of a Nurse-Led Palliative Care Intervention for Patients with Newly Diagnosed Lung Cancer.

Specialist palliative care improves quality of life (QOL), symptom burden, and may prolong survival among patients with advanced lung cancer. Previous trials focused on advanced disease, and less is known about patients across a broad range of stages. We sought to assess the effect of a nurse-led telephone-based primary palliative care intervention that focused on patients across a broad range of stages.

Continuity of Care for Patients with Obesity-Associated Chronic Conditions: Protocol for a Multisite Retrospective Cohort Study.

Background: Obesity affects nearly half of adults in the United States and is contributing substantially to a pandemic of obesity-associated chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and arthritis. The obesity-associated chronic condition pandemic is particularly severe in low-income, medically underserved, predominantly African-American areas in the southern United States. Little is known regarding the impact of geographic, income, and racial disparities in continuity of care on major health outcomes for patients with obesity-associated chronic conditions.

The Management of Diabetes in Everyday Life (MODEL) program: development of a tailored text message intervention to improve diabetes self-care activities among underserved African-American adults.

Unlabelled: Tailoring health-related materials is an effective mechanism to encourage behavior change; however, little research has described processes and critical characteristics for effective tailoring in underserved populations. The purpose of this study is to describe a process using input from content experts and lay patient advisors to tailor text messages focused on improving self-care behaviors of African-American adults with diabetes and identify characteristics of messages perceived to be most effective. An initial library of tailorable messages was created using theory-based approaches, expert opinion, and publicly available materials.

Integration of public health and primary care: A systematic review of the current literature in primary care physician mediated childhood obesity interventions.

Introduction: Childhood obesity, with its growing prevalence, detrimental effects on population health and economic burden, is an important public health issue in the United States and worldwide. There is need for expansion of the role of primary care physicians in obesity interventions. The primary aim of this review is to explore primary care physician (PCP) mediated interventions targeting childhood obesity and assess the roles played by physicians in the interventions.

A novel method for detecting inpatient pediatric asthma encounters using administrative data.

Multiple methods for detecting asthma encounters are used today in public surveillance, quality reporting, and clinical research. Failure to detect asthma encounters can make it difficult to measure the scope and effectiveness of hospital or community-based interventions important in comparative effectiveness research and accountable care. Given the pairing of asthma with certain respiratory conditions, the objective of this study was to develop and test an asthma detection algorithm with specificity and sensitivity using 2 criteria: (1) principal discharge diagnosis and (2) asthma diagnosis code position.

Does initial length of stay impact 30-day readmission risk in pediatric asthma patients?

Objectives: Accountable care puts pressure on hospitals to manage care episodes. Initial length of stay (ILOS) and readmission risk are important elements of a care episode and measures of care quality. Understanding the association between these two measures can guide hospital efforts in managing care episodes.

Antibiotic prescription pattern for viral respiratory illness in emergency room and ambulatory care settings.

Objective: To evaluate the current practice pattern of antibiotic prescription rate in viral respiratory tract infection diagnosed children among different specialty health care providers.

Methods: The study was a retrospective case review study where a random sample of 1200 child care visits coded as viral respiratory infections in primary care provider's office, convenient care clinic, or emergency room in 2006 were analyzed.

Results: Overall, the antibiotic prescription rate was 30%.

Short-term natural history of the standard approaches for gastrostomy tube placement in the pediatric patient.

Introduction: Gastrostomy placement is a common procedure in the pediatric population. Standard approaches of tube placement include open, laparoscopic, and percutaneous endoscopic methods. Placement of the gastrostomy in relation to the fundus and the anterior abdominal wall is crucial to ensure adequate comfort and functionality.

Comparison of strategies for sustaining weight loss: the weight loss maintenance randomized controlled trial.

Context: Behavioral weight loss interventions achieve short-term success, but re-gain is common.

Objective: To compare 2 weight loss maintenance interventions with a self-directed control group.

Design, Setting, And Participants: Two-phase trial in which 1032 overweight or obese adults (38% African American, 63% women) with hypertension, dyslipidemia, or both who had lost at least 4 kg during a 6-month weight loss program (phase 1) were randomized to a weight-loss maintenance intervention (phase 2).