Background: Sickle cell disease (SCD) is characterized by frequent, unpredictable pain episodes and other vaso-occlusive crises (VOCs) leading to significant healthcare utilization. VOC frequency is often an endpoint in clinical trials investigating novel therapies for this devastating disease.
Procedure: The Consortium for the Advancement of Sickle Cell Research (CASiRe) is an international collaboration investigating clinical severity in SCD using a validated questionnaire and medical chart review standardized across four countries (United States, United Kingdom, Italy and Ghana).
Results: This study, focused on pain crisis incidence and healthcare utilization, included 868 patients, equally represented according to age and gender. HgbSS was the most common genotype. Patients from Ghana used the Emergency Room/Day Hospital for pain more frequently (annualized mean 2.01) than patients from other regions (annualized mean 1.56 U.S.; 1.09 U.K.; 0.02 Italy), while U.K. patients were hospitalized for pain more often (annualized mean: U.K. 2.98) than patients in other regions (annualized mean 1.98 U.S.; 1.18 Ghana; Italy 0.54). Italy's hospitalization rate for pain (annualized mean: 0.57) was nearly 20 times greater than its emergency room/day hospital only visits for pain (annualized mean: 0.03). When categorized by genotype and age, similar results were seen.
Conclusions: Geographic differences in pain crisis frequency and healthcare utilization may correlate with variable organization of healthcare systems among countries and should be considered regarding trial design, endpoints, and analysis of results when investigating novel agents for clinical benefit.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bcmd.2021.102612 | DOI Listing |
Disabil Rehabil
December 2024
Amsterdam UMC location University of Amsterdam, Public and Occupational Health, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Purpose: To explore the experiences of long-term sick-listed employees and those of employers with communication and collaboration during sick leave and the return-to-work (RTW) process.
Methods: Previously long-term sick-listed employees ( = 9) and employers ( = 9) were interviewed about their experiences with communication and collaboration during sick leave and RTW. Thematic analysis, utilizing patient journey mapping was applied to analyze and map out their experiences.
Background: To analyse the epidemiological characteristics of orthopaedic trauma patients and thereby optimize healthcare resource allocation and improve treatment efficiency.
Materials And Methods: Relying on the hospital information system (HIS) database, we retrospectively analysed the epidemiological characteristics of orthopaedic trauma inpatients in our hospital between 2013 and 2022, including patient demographic information, causes of injury, location of injury and hospitalization costs.
Results: The median age of the patients was 36 (26-47) years old; the age stratification of the patients was highest in the proportion of patients aged 40-50 years old (29.
J Viral Hepat
February 2025
Centre for Public Health and Epidemiology, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
The prevalence of viral hepatitis among people in prisons is higher than in the general population. Screening, treatment and vaccination programmes exist within prisons to reduce the incidence of hepatitis, although lower uptake has often been reported compared to similar programmes outside of prisons. We conducted a systematic review of qualitative evidence to explore the barriers and facilitators to hepatitis B and C reduction programmes in prisons from the perspectives of people in prison, custodial staff and prison healthcare staff.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiometrics
October 2024
RAND Corporation, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, United States.
Health care decisions are increasingly informed by clinical decision support algorithms, but these algorithms may perpetuate or increase racial and ethnic disparities in access to and quality of health care. Further complicating the problem, clinical data often have missing or poor quality racial and ethnic information, which can lead to misleading assessments of algorithmic bias. We present novel statistical methods that allow for the use of probabilities of racial/ethnic group membership in assessments of algorithm performance and quantify the statistical bias that results from error in these imputed group probabilities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Rural Health
January 2025
Department of Health Policy and Management, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
Purpose: This study compares 2018-2023 Medicare Advantage (MA) days as a percentage of total Medicare days in rural and urban hospitals, describes 2022-2023 operating profitability of rural and urban hospitals by quartiles of MA days as a percentage of total Medicare days, and explores hospital characteristics that may be important for understanding the relationship between MA and profitability of rural hospitals.
Methods: Financial and hospital data were obtained from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Healthcare Cost Report Information System (HCRIS) for the years 2018 to 2023. Hospitals were assigned to quartiles based on MA days as a percentage of total Medicare days.
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