Assessing the usability of an immersive virtual reality grocery store in healthy controls.

Background: Immersive virtual reality (IVR) as a research platform to study human behaviors is an emerging field and may be useful for studying self-care management, especially in the gap between formal healthcare recommendations and day-to-day living. Self-care activities, such as grocery shopping, can be challenging for people with chronic illness. We developed an IVR environment that simulates a real-life grocery store and conducted a usability study to demonstrate the safety and acceptability of IVR as an experimental environment.

Antipyretic Efficacy of Bromocriptine in Central Fever: an Exploratory Analysis.

Background: 'Central' fevers are thought to result from disruption of hypothalamic thermoregulatory pathways following severe brain injuries. Bromocriptine, due to its central dopamine receptor agonism, has been hypothesized to have antipyretic effect in this setting. However, clinical evidence for this off-label use is limited to a few case reports.

The Texas Health Resources Clinical Scholars Program: Learning healthcare system workforce development through embedded translational research.

Introduction: Texas Health Resources (THR), a large, nonprofit health care system based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, has collaborated with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW) to develop and operate a unique, integrated approach for Learning Health System (LHS) workforce development. This training model centers on academic health system faculty members conducting later-stage translational research within a partnering regional care delivery organization.

Methods: The THR Clinical Scholars Program engages early career UTSW faculty members to conduct studies that are likely to have an impact on care delivery at the health system level.

Relationship between sleep apnea and hospital readmission in rural and urban populations.

Objectives: The aims of this study were to evaluate geographic differences in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) prevalence, to determine if readmissions were more likely among rural patients with OSA than others, and to model predictors, including diagnosed OSA, of 30, 60, and 90-day acute-care readmissions.

Design: This cohort study employed a secondary analysis of data extracted from the electronic health record shared by all hospitals in a north Texas healthcare system.

Sample: The sample consisted of records associated with 472,503 adult patients admitted to any of the study system's acute-care facilities from 2016 through 2019.

Association of Healthcare Access With Intensive Care Unit Utilization and Mortality in Patients of Hispanic Ethnicity Hospitalized With COVID-19.

Background: Racial and ethnic minority groups in the United States experience a disproportionate burden of COVID-19 deaths.

Objective: To evaluate whether outcome differences between Hispanic and non-Hispanic COVID-19 hospitalized patients exist and, if so, to identify the main malleable contributing factors.

Design, Setting, Participants: Retrospective, cross-sectional, observational study of 6097 adult COVID-19 patients hospitalized within a single large healthcare system from March to November 2020.