Publications by authors named "R Strum"
Objectives: Paramedic services face increasing challenges due to delays in patient transfer of care (TOC) at emergency departments (EDs). Prolonged TOC times directly impact paramedic services' ability to provide emergency response, though the patient and clinical factors contributing to these delays remain unclear. We examined TOC times for all transports to the ED and analyzed factors associated with prolonged TOC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- The study investigates how neighborhood characteristics and socioeconomic status (SES) affect avoidable emergency department (ED) visits in a Canadian hospital.
- A retrospective analysis was done using ED data and census information to classify visits as avoidable and correlate them with various SES factors, revealing significant trends based on education, income, and household composition.
- Results showed higher avoidable ED visits in neighborhoods with lower SES, characterized by more single-person households, lower education levels, and higher unemployment rates, highlighting the association between proximity to the ED and avoidable visits.
Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic led to a decline in emergency department (ED) visits and a subsequent return to baseline pre-pandemic levels. It is unclear if this trend extended to paramedic services and if patient cohorts accessing paramedics changed. We examined trends and associations between paramedic utilization (9-1-1 calls and ED transports) and the COVID-19 timeframe.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are effective in reducing hospitalization, COVID-19 symptoms, and COVID-19 mortality for nursing home (NH) residents. We sought to compare the accuracy of various machine learning models, examine changes to model performance, and identify resident characteristics that have the strongest associations with 30-day COVID-19 mortality, before and after vaccine availability.
Methods: We conducted a population-based retrospective cohort study analyzing data from all NH facilities across Ontario, Canada.