scholarly journals COVID-19 Admission Screening, and Assessment of Infectiousness at an Academic Medical Center, Iowa 2020

Author(s):  
Mohammed Alsuhaibani ◽  
Takaaki Kobayashi ◽  
Alexandra Trannel ◽  
Stephanie Holley ◽  
Oluchi J. Abosi ◽  
...  

Abstract Objective: Patients admitted to the hospital may unknowingly carry SARS-CoV-2 and hospitals have implemented SARS-CoV-2 admission screening. However, because SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR may remain positive for months after infection, positive results may represent active or past infection. We determined the prevalence and infectiousness of patients who were admitted for reasons unrelated to COVID-19 but tested positive on admission screening. Methods: We conducted an observational study at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics from July 7 to October 25, 2020. All patients admitted without suspicion of COVID-19 infection were included and medical records of those with a positive admission screening test were reviewed. Infectiousness was determined using patient history, PCR cycle threshold (Ct) value, and serology. Results: A total of 5,913 patients were screened and admitted for reasons unrelated to COVID-19. Of these, 101 had positive admission RT-PCR results. Thirty-six patient were excluded because they had respiratory signs/symptoms on admission on chart review. Sixty-five patients (1.1%) did not have respiratory symptoms. A total of 55 patients had Ct values available and were included in this analysis. The median age was 56 years, and (51%) were male. Our assessment revealed that 23 patients (42%) were likely infectious. The median duration of in-hospital isolation was five days for those likely infectious and two days for those deemed non-infectious. Conclusions: COVID-19 infection was infrequent among patients admitted for reasons unrelated to COVID-19. An assessment of the likelihood of infectiousness using clinical history, RT-PCR Ct values, and serology may help discontinue isolation and conserve resources.

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Blake M Snyder ◽  
Jessica S Mounessa ◽  
Melissa Fazzari ◽  
Joseph V Caravaglio ◽  
Alexandra Kretowicz ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (s1) ◽  
pp. 73-73
Author(s):  
Chin Chin Lee ◽  
Helenmarie M. Blake ◽  
Carlos A. Canales ◽  
Stephen J. DeGennaro ◽  
Ishwar Ramsingh ◽  
...  

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: The objectives of this presentation are to discuss 1) the implementation of Consent to Contact at an Academic Medical Center; 2) the access to lists of potential participants by study teams; and 3) the challenges and adjustments made to the initial conceptualized process. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Participant recruitment is critical to the success of all research studies. It is particularly challenging when investigators do not have a patient population from which to recruit. Thus, the University of Miami launched the CTC initiative in 2016 to facilitate study recruitment. Study investigators can request access to a registry of participants who agreed to be contacted and meet the initial study eligibility criteria. A multidisciplinary Operational Committee provides oversight and regulates access to the CTC registry. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: The registry has over 110K patients who have agreed to be contacted for eligible research studies. The demographic distribution of the patients in the registry mirrors the diversity of the UHealth population. As of January 2018, when the registry became available to the research community, 25 study teams from different departments, including the All of Us Research Program, have requested potential participant lists. The process of requesting access to patient lists is adapted to studies’ needs, with particular reference to sensitive populations, such as HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, etc. Results on utilization and satisfaction of the CTC initiative are being collected and will be presented. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: The CTC initiative allows UHealth patients to opt-in to the registry for research studies. The Operational Committee continues to monitor the successful consent of patients to participate in individual research studies and improving the request process.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Costigan ◽  
Sue S Feldman ◽  
Mark Lemak

BACKGROUND Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) survey responses are considered significant indicators of the quality of care and patient satisfaction. There is a pressing need to improve patient satisfaction rates as CAHPS survey responses are considered when determining the amount a facility will be reimbursed by the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid each year. Low overall CAHPS scores for an academic medical center’s dermatology clinics were anecdotally attributed to clinic type. However, it was unclear whether clinic type was contributing to the low scores or whether there were other factors. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to determine where the efforts of patient satisfaction improvement should be focused for two different types of dermatology clinics (private and rapid access clinics). METHODS This study used a concurrent mixed methods design. Secondary data derived from the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital’s Press Ganey website were analyzed for clinic type comparisons and unstructured data were qualitatively analyzed to further enrich the quantitative findings. The University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital is an academic medical center. The data were analyzed to determine the contributors responsible for each clinic not meeting national benchmarks. Thereafter, a review of these contributing factors was further performed to assess the difference in CAHPS scores between the private and rapid access clinics to determine if clinic type was a contributing factor to the overall scores. RESULTS The data sample included 821 responses from May 2017 to May 2018. Overall, when both private clinics and rapid access clinics were viewed collectively, majority of the patients reported stewardship of patient resources as the most poorly rated factor (367/549, 66.8%) and physician communication quality as the most positively rated factor (581/638, 91.0%). However, when private clinics and rapid access clinics were viewed individually, rapid access clinics contributed slightly to the overall lower dermatology scores at the academic medical center. CONCLUSIONS This study determined that different factors were responsible for lower CAHPS scores for the two different dermatology clinics. Some of the contributing factors were associated with the mission of the clinic. It was suspected that the mission had not been properly communicated to patients, leading to misaligned expectations of care at each clinic.


2019 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-55
Author(s):  
Fei Fei ◽  
Marisa B Marques ◽  
Elizabeth M Staley ◽  
Lance A Williams

ABSTRACT Objective To evaluate how clinical practice was affected by the change in direct antiglobulin testing (DAT) methodologies and subsequent stronger reported DAT results at our large academic medical center. Method We retrospectively reviewed DAT results of umbilical cord blood from infants with blood type A or B born to mothers with antibody-negative type O blood, based on records kept at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Hospital, a 1400-bed academic medical center. Results We randomly chose 50 neonates with positive DAT results who had been tested using the tube method and 50 whose testing had used the gel method. Although 86% of results with the tube method were positive microscopically, 52% and 40% of the DAT results with the gel method were 1+ and 2+ positive, respectively. Further, we observed an increase in the number of neonates treated with phototherapy who had been tested using the gel method. Conclusion We report that DATs performed using the gel method had increased DAT strength compared with tube testing, which led to increased use of phototherapy by our clinical colleagues.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dafna Koldobskiy ◽  
Soleyah Groves ◽  
Steven M. Scharf ◽  
Mark J. Cowan

Background. Recent studies of risks in cardiopulmonary arrest (CPA) have been performed using large databases from a broad mix of hospital settings. However, these risks might be different in a large, urban, academic medical center. We attempted to validate factors influencing outcomes from CPA at the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC). Methods. Retrospective chart review of all adult patients who underwent CPA between 2000 and 2005 at UMMC. Risk factors and outcomes were analyzed with appropriate statistical analysis and compared with published results. Results. 729 episodes of CPA were examined during the study period. Surgical patients had better survival than medical or cardiac patients. Intensive care unit' (ICU) patients had poor survival, but there was no difference on monitored or unmonitored floors. Respiratory etiologies survived better than cardiac etiologies. CPR duration and obesity were negatively correlated with outcome, while neurologic disease, trauma, and electrolyte imbalances improved survival. Age, gender, race, presence of a witness, presence of a monitor, comorbidities, or time of day of CPA did not influence survival, although age was associated with differences in comorbidities. Conclusions. UMMC risk factors for CPA survival differed from those in more broad-based studies. Care should be used when applying the results of database studies to specific medical institutions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 237428952110102
Author(s):  
Katherine L. Imborek ◽  
Matthew D. Krasowski ◽  
Paul Natvig ◽  
Anna E. Merrill ◽  
Daniel J. Diekema ◽  
...  

International travel has been a significant factor in the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Many countries and airlines have implemented travel restrictions to limit the spread of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2. A common requirement has been a negative reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction performed by a clinical laboratory within 48 to 72 hours of departure. A more recent travel mandate for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 immunoglobulin M serology testing was instituted by the Chinese government on October 29, 2020. Pretravel testing for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 raises complications in terms of cost, turnaround time, and follow-up of positive results. In this report, we describe the experience of a multidisciplinary collaboration to develop a workflow for pretravel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction and immunoglobulin M serology testing at an academic medical center. The workflow primarily involved self-payment by patients and preferred retrieval of results by the patient through the electronic health record patient portal (Epic MyChart). A total of 556 unique patients underwent pretravel reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction testing, with 13 (2.4%) having one or more positive results, a rate similar to that for reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction testing performed for other protocol-driven asymptomatic screening (eg, inpatient admissions, preprocedural) at our medical center. For 5 of 13 reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction positive samples, the traveler had clinical history, prior reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction positive, and high cycle thresholds values on pretravel testing consistent with remote infection and minimal transmission risk. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 immunoglobulin M was performed on only 24 patients but resulted in 2 likely false positives. Overall, our experience at an academic medical center shows the challenge with pretravel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 testing.


2018 ◽  
Vol 79 (11) ◽  
pp. 613
Author(s):  
Ariel Deardoff ◽  
Dylan Romero

The University of California-San Francisco (UCSF) Library is a graduate-only health science university with four professional schools (medicine, pharmacy, nursing, and dentistry), a graduate division, and an academic medical center. For several years UCSF has been the number one public recipient of NIH funding, reflecting the school’s dedication to biomedical research. Around 2015, the UCSF Library began investigating new ways to serve the university’s research population. Seeing a need for more computational and entrepreneurship training the library piloted two new programs: the Data Science Initiative (DSI) and the Makers Lab.


10.2196/17171 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. e17171
Author(s):  
Jennifer Costigan ◽  
Sue S Feldman ◽  
Mark Lemak

Background Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) survey responses are considered significant indicators of the quality of care and patient satisfaction. There is a pressing need to improve patient satisfaction rates as CAHPS survey responses are considered when determining the amount a facility will be reimbursed by the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid each year. Low overall CAHPS scores for an academic medical center’s dermatology clinics were anecdotally attributed to clinic type. However, it was unclear whether clinic type was contributing to the low scores or whether there were other factors. Objective This study aimed to determine where the efforts of patient satisfaction improvement should be focused for two different types of dermatology clinics (private and rapid access clinics). Methods This study used a concurrent mixed methods design. Secondary data derived from the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital’s Press Ganey website were analyzed for clinic type comparisons and unstructured data were qualitatively analyzed to further enrich the quantitative findings. The University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital is an academic medical center. The data were analyzed to determine the contributors responsible for each clinic not meeting national benchmarks. Thereafter, a review of these contributing factors was further performed to assess the difference in CAHPS scores between the private and rapid access clinics to determine if clinic type was a contributing factor to the overall scores. Results The data sample included 821 responses from May 2017 to May 2018. Overall, when both private clinics and rapid access clinics were viewed collectively, majority of the patients reported stewardship of patient resources as the most poorly rated factor (367/549, 66.8%) and physician communication quality as the most positively rated factor (581/638, 91.0%). However, when private clinics and rapid access clinics were viewed individually, rapid access clinics contributed slightly to the overall lower dermatology scores at the academic medical center. Conclusions This study determined that different factors were responsible for lower CAHPS scores for the two different dermatology clinics. Some of the contributing factors were associated with the mission of the clinic. It was suspected that the mission had not been properly communicated to patients, leading to misaligned expectations of care at each clinic.


2021 ◽  
Vol 156 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S11-S12
Author(s):  
Thomas Herb ◽  
Carmen Gherasim ◽  
David Manthei

Abstract Objectives Phosphatidylethanol (PEth) has emerged as a specific biomarker for alcohol use with superior diagnostic values compared to traditional alcohol biomarkers including urinary ethyl glucuronide (uEtG), urinary ethyl sulfate (uEtS), and carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT). PEth can extend the detection window of alcohol use up to 28 days and has been dubbed a “hemoglobin A1c”-like biomarker for alcohol use. Measurement of PEth concentration in the blood has become of increasing interest in a wide variety of clinical settings including transplant evaluation, detection of chronic alcohol consumption and monitoring alcohol abstinence. Availability of PEth testing is currently limited to few reference laboratories; at our institution, PEth quickly became one of the most expensive chemistry/toxicology sendout tests. Few testing guidelines exist for PEth regarding test utilization and time intervals for appropriate repeat testing. This retrospective analysis was conducted evaluating the patterns of PEth ordering to inform best test utilization strategies. Methods A retrospective limited data set of PEth (PEth 16:0/18:1 by LC-MS/MS) test results was obtained from a large academic medical center. Concordance of the positive test results using a cutoff of 20 ng/mL for repeat testing within 7, 14 and 28 days was analyzed. Results 3,739 distinct results from 1,957 patients was obtained. The median age of patients was 57 years (range 19-94). Males accounted for 58.4% (1,142 patients) of the testing. The overall positivity rate was 23.3% (median concentration 188.5 ng/mL), with 52% of positive results suggesting moderate alcohol consumption (20 – 200 ng/mL) while the remaining 48% reflected heavy alcohol consumption or chronic alcohol use (>200 ng/mL). 588 patients (30%) had multiple PEth results, including 150 patients with ≥ 5 results and 36 patients with ≥ 10 results. Long term monitoring of alcohol use in pre- and post- transplant patients (n=36) with ≥ 10 results revealed that 52.7% had all negative results, 5.6% all positive results, and 41.7% with mixed results included a subset (25%) initially positive and subsequently negative results monitored for up to 2 years. Analysis of two consecutive tests ordered within 7 (n=96), 14 (n=205) and 28 days (n=411) revealed that 90%, 82.9% and 83.7% of the results had the same interpretation with an average change in concentration of 15.2 ng/mL 35.9 ng/mL, and 35.4 ng/mL, respectively. Of the 10% observed changes within 7 days, the majority accounted for expected PEth 16:0/18:1 elimination. Conclusions Our data suggests that long-term monitoring of alcohol use with PEth may be helpful in the surveillance of alcohol abstention or alcohol relapse that can assist in prioritizing patients for liver transplant. To improve PEth test utilization (and decrease expensive sendout testing), PEth should not be ordered less than 7 days apart. Instead, recent alcohol use may be monitored with traditional biomarkers (uEtG/uEtS).


Author(s):  
W. Bruce Fye

In 1915 the Mayo brothers created the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research and established a formal relationship with the University of Minnesota, located ninety miles away in Minneapolis. Louis Wilson, a pathologist the Mayo brothers had hired in 1905, championed a more rigorous system of specialty training. An educational reformer, Wilson focused on the need to improve postgraduate training at a time when the emphasis in the United States was on closing or reforming substandard medical schools. The fellowship program established in Rochester, Minnesota, was unique in that it required candidates to have graduated from an acceptable medical school and to have completed an internship. Mayo fellows spent three years preparing for careers as medical or surgical specialists. Fear of competition led several physicians in the Twin Cities to attempt to end the affiliation between the Mayo Foundation and the University of Minnesota. Their efforts failed.


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