Hospitalized COVID-19 patients with diabetes have an increased risk for pneumonia, intensive care unit requirement, intubation, and death: A cross-sectional cohort study in Mexico in 2020.

Background: Diabetes mellitus is a chronic health condition that has been linked with an increased risk of severe illness and mortality from COVID-19. In Mexico, the impact of diabetes on COVID-19 outcomes in hospitalized patients has not been fully quantified. Understanding the increased risk posed by diabetes in this patient population can help healthcare providers better allocate resources and improve patient outcomes.

Bridging the gap: A library-based collaboration to enhance data skills for clinical researchers.

Introduction: Enterprise data warehouses (EDWs) serve as foundational infrastructure in a modern learning health system, housing clinical and other system-wide data and making it available for research, strategic, and quality improvement purposes. Building on a longstanding partnership between Northwestern University's Galter Health Sciences Library and the Northwestern Medicine Enterprise Data Warehouse (NMEDW), an end-to-end clinical research data management (cRDM) program was created to enhance clinical data workforce capacity and further expand related library-based services for the campus.

Methods: The training program covers topics such as clinical database architecture, clinical coding standards, and translation of research questions into queries for proper data extraction.

Lung transplantation for coronavirus disease 2019 acute respiratory distress syndrome/fibrosis: silver lining of a global pandemic.

Purpose Of Review: The COVID-19 pandemic revolutionized the field of lung transplantation, as lung transplant is now an acceptable life-saving therapy for select patients with COVID-19-associated acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), while prior to the pandemic, few transplants were performed for ARDS. This review article details the establishment of lung transplantation as a viable therapy for COVID-19-related respiratory failure, how to evaluate COVID-19 patients for lung transplant, and specific technical considerations for the operation.

Recent Findings: Lung transplantation is a life-altering treatment for two distinct cohorts of COVID-19 patients: those with irrecoverable COVID-19-associated ARDS and those who recover from the initial COVID-19 insult but are left with chronic, debilitating post-COVID fibrosis.

Curated collections for educators: Nine key articles and article series for teaching qualitative research methods.

Background: Qualitative research explains observations, focusing on how and why phenomena and experiences occur. Qualitative methods go beyond quantitative data and provide critical information inaccessible through quantitative methods. However, at all levels of medical education, there is insufficient exposure to qualitative research.

Predicting Social Determinants of Health in Patient Navigation: Case Study.

Background: Patient navigation (PN) programs have demonstrated efficacy in improving health outcomes for marginalized populations across a range of clinical contexts by addressing barriers to health care, including social determinants of health (SDoHs). However, it can be challenging for navigators to identify SDoHs by asking patients directly because of many factors, including patients' reluctance to disclose information, communication barriers, and the variable resources and experience levels of patient navigators. Navigators could benefit from strategies that augment their ability to gather SDoH data.

DNA methyltransferase inhibition induces dynamic gene expression changes in lung CD4 T cells of neonatal mice with E. coli pneumonia.

Bacterial pulmonary infections are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in neonates, with less severity in older children. Previous studies demonstrated that the DNA of CD4 T cells in the mouse lung, whose primary responsibility is to coordinate the immune response to foreign pathogens, is differentially methylated in neonates compared with juveniles. Nevertheless, the effect of this differential DNA methylation on CD4 T cell gene expression and response to infection remains unclear.

Listening session with the US Food and Drug Administration, Lewy Body Dementia Association, and an expert panel.

Unlabelled: The regulatory path for drug approval is increasingly well defined. Drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer disease (AD) need to show statistically significant benefit over placebo with respect to cognitive and functional measures, with the Clinical Dementia Rating scale and Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Subscale being among the most often used instruments in AD clinical trials. In contrast, there are no validated instruments for use in clinical trials of drugs for the treatment of dementia with Lewy bodies.

Age-based centiles for diastolic blood pressure among children in the out-of-hospital emergency setting.

Objective: To compare Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) diastolic blood pressure (DBP) criteria to empirically derived DBP criteria for the prediction of out-of-hospital interventions in children.

Methods: We performed a retrospective study of pediatric (<18 years) encounters from the ESO Data Collaborative, which includes approximately 2000 Emergency Medical Services agencies in the United States. We developed age-based centile curves for DBP using generalized additive models for location, scale, and shape.

Social Determinants, Cardiovascular Disease, and Health Care Cost: A Nationwide Study in the United States Using Machine Learning.

Background Existing studies on cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) often focus on individual-level behavioral risk factors, but research examining social determinants is limited. This study applies a novel machine learning approach to identify the key predictors of county-level care costs and prevalence of CVDs (including atrial fibrillation, acute myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, and ischemic heart disease). Methods and Results We applied the extreme gradient boosting machine learning approach to a total of 3137 counties.

The financial burden of out-of-pocket healthcare expenses on caregivers of children with atopic dermatitis in the United States.

Background: Atopic dermatitis (AD) is associated with elevated financial costs, including out-of-pocket (OOP) expenses. Yet, the full burden of OOP expenses in children with AD is poorly understood.

Objectives: We sought to characterise categories, impact, and associations of caregiver-reported OOP AD healthcare expenses for US children.

Comparing the severity of chronic rhinosinusitis symptoms before versus during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: COVID-19 measures such as masking, social distancing, and staying indoors may mitigate chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) symptoms. We evaluate whether these measures correlated with improved symptoms in patients with CRS.

Methods: This retrospective study compared SNOT-22 survey data from the Northwestern CRS Registry at the time of enrollment and at years 1-5 of follow-up.

Left Ventricular Assist Devices: A Primer For the General Cardiologist.

Durable implantable left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) have been shown to improve survival and quality of life for patients with stage D heart failure. Even though LVADs remain underused overall, the number of patients with heart failure supported with LVADs is steadily increasing. Therefore, general cardiologists will increasingly encounter these patients.

Education Theory Made Practical: Creating open educational resources via an apprenticeship model.

Introduction: Clinical faculty may have limited knowledge of education theories and best practices in health professions education. Many faculty development programs focus on passive learning with limited application to practice. There is a need for more active engagement for early career educators.

Regional Anesthesia for Vascular Surgery and Pain Management.

Patients undergoing vascular surgery tend to have significant systemic comorbidities. Vascular surgery itself is also associated with greater cardiac morbidity and overall mortality than other types of noncardiac surgery. Regional anesthesia is amenable as the primary anesthetic technique for vascular surgery or as an adjunct to general anesthesia.

Left Atrial Strain and the Risk of Atrial Arrhythmias From Extended Ambulatory Cardiac Monitoring: MESA.

Background Abnormalities in left atrial (LA) function often occur before LA structural changes and clinically identified atrial fibrillation (AF). Little is known about the relationship between LA strain and the risk of subclinical atrial arrhythmias detected from extended ambulatory cardiac monitoring. Methods and Results A total of 1441 participants of MESA (Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis) completed speckle-tracking echocardiography and cardiac monitoring during 2016 to 2018 (mean age, 73 years); participants in AF during echocardiography or during the entire cardiac monitoring period were excluded.