Antibiotic prescribing for respiratory tract infection across a national primary care network in 2019.

Background: Respiratory tract infection (RTI) is the leading reason for avoidable antimicrobial use in primary care, yet provider-level feedback on its use is only available in some provinces. The aim of this study was to validate case definitions for RTI across the Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network (CPCSSN) and determine baseline provider-level variability in antimicrobial prescribing in 2019.

Methods: The RTI case definitions were developed using demographic, diagnostic coding and keywords in electronic medical record.

A Semiautomated Chart Review for Assessing the Development of Radiation Pneumonitis Using Natural Language Processing: Diagnostic Accuracy and Feasibility Study.

Background: Health research frequently requires manual chart reviews to identify patients in a study-specific cohort and examine their clinical outcomes. Manual chart review is a labor-intensive process that requires significant time investment for clinical researchers.

Objective: This study aims to evaluate the feasibility and accuracy of an assisted chart review program, using an in-house rule-based text-extraction program written in Python, to identify patients who developed radiation pneumonitis (RP) after receiving curative radiotherapy.

Do preoperative patient-reported outcomes predict hospital length of stay for surgically-treated end-stage ankle osteoarthritis patients?

Background: End-stage ankle arthritis is often debilitating, associated with diminished mobility, pain, and reduced health related quality of life. Direct hospital costs of AA and TAA differ, with hospital length of stay being a major contributor. The objective of this study is to test the association between four patient-reported outcome measures with hospital length of stay, potentially important for preoperative planning and care.