Risk factors associated with physician trainee concern over missed educational opportunities during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract Background The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a transformation of clinical care practices to protect both patients and providers. These changes led to a decrease in patient volume, impacting physician trainee education due to lost clinical and didactic opportunities. We measured the prevalence of trainee concern over missed educational opportunities and investigated the risk factors leading to such concerns. Methods All residents and fellows at a large academic medical center were invited to participate in a web-based survey in May of 2020. Participants responded to questions regarding demographic characteristics, specialty, primary assigned responsibility during the previous 2 weeks (clinical, education, or research), perceived concern over missed educational opportunities, and burnout. Multivariable logistic regression was used to assess the relationship between missed educational opportunities and the measured variables. Results 22% (301 of 1375) of the trainees completed the survey. 47% of the participants were concerned about missed educational opportunities. Trainees assigned to education at home had 2.85 [95%CI 1.33–6.45] greater odds of being concerned over missed educational opportunities as compared with trainees performing clinical work. Trainees performing research were not similarly affected [aOR = 0.96, 95%CI (0.47–1.93)]. Trainees in pathology or radiology had 2.51 [95%CI 1.16–5.68] greater odds of concern for missed educational opportunities as compared with medicine. Trainees with greater concern over missed opportunities were more likely to be experiencing burnout (p = 0.038). Conclusions Trainees in radiology or pathology and those assigned to education at home were more likely to be concerned about their missed educational opportunities. Residency programs should consider providing trainees with research or at home clinical opportunities as an alternative to self-study should future need for reduced clinical hours arise.

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Demographic and Risk Factor Differences between Children with “One-Time” and “Repeat” Visits to the Emergency Department for Asthma

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18020486 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (2) ◽

pp. 486

Author(s):

Pavani Rangachari ◽

Jie Chen ◽

Nishtha Ahuja ◽

Anjeli Patel ◽

Renuka Mehta

Keyword(s):

Risk Factors ◽

Emergency Department ◽

Risk Factor ◽

Childhood Asthma ◽

Medical Center ◽

Academic Medical Center ◽

Retrospective Chart Review ◽

Primary Research ◽

Ed Visits ◽

The Individual

This retrospective study examines demographic and risk factor differences between children who visited the emergency department (ED) for asthma once (“one-time”) and more than once (“repeat”) over an 18-month period at an academic medical center. The purpose is to contribute to the literature on ED utilization for asthma and provide a foundation for future primary research on self-management effectiveness (SME) of childhood asthma. For the first round of analysis, an 18-month retrospective chart review was conducted on 252 children (0–17 years) who visited the ED for asthma in 2019–2020, to obtain data on demographics, risk factors, and ED visits for each child. Of these, 160 (63%) were “one-time” and 92 (37%) were “repeat” ED patients. Demographic and risk factor differences between “one-time” and “repeat” ED patients were assessed using contingency table and logistic regression analyses. A second round of analysis was conducted on patients in the age-group 8–17 years to match another retrospective asthma study recently completed in the outpatient clinics at the same (study) institution. The first-round analysis indicated that except age, none of the individual demographic or risk factors were statistically significant in predicting of “repeat” ED visits. More unequivocally, the second-round analysis revealed that none of the individual factors examined (including age, race, gender, insurance, and asthma severity, among others) were statistically significant in predicting “repeat” ED visits for childhood asthma. A key implication of the results therefore is that something other than the factors examined is driving “repeat” ED visits in children with asthma. In addition to contributing to the ED utilization literature, the results serve to corroborate findings from the recent outpatient study and bolster the impetus for future primary research on SME of childhood asthma.

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Preparing Clinical Text for Use in Biomedical Research

Medical Informatics ◽

10.4018/978-1-60566-050-9.ch159 ◽

2011 ◽

pp. 2085-2095

Author(s):

John P. Pestian ◽

Lukasz Itert ◽

Charlotte Andersen

Keyword(s):

Language Processing ◽

Medical Center ◽

Clinical Care ◽

Academic Medical Center ◽

Clinical Text ◽

Delivery Of Care ◽

Radiology Reports ◽

Academic Medical ◽

Textual Data ◽

Regulatory Actions

Approximately 57 different types of clinical annotations construct a patient’s medical record. These annotations include radiology reports, discharge summaries, and surgical and nursing notes. Hospitals typically produce millions of text-based medical records over the course of a year. These records are essential for the delivery of care, but many are underutilized or not utilized at all for clinical research. The textual data found in these annotations is a rich source of insights into aspects of clinical care and the clinical delivery system. Recent regulatory actions, however, require that, in many cases, data not obtained through informed consent or data not related to the delivery of care must be made anonymous (as referred to by regulators as harmless), before they can be used. This article describes a practical approach with which Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC), a large pediatric academic medical center with more than 761,000 annual patient encounters, developed open source software for making pediatric clinical text harmless without losing its rich meaning. Development of the software dealt with many of the issues that often arise in natural language processing, such as data collection, disambiguation, and data scrubbing.

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Development of an Abstraction Tool to Assess Palliative Care Components

American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine® ◽

10.1177/10499091211061724 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 104990912110617

Author(s):

Meredith A. MacMartin ◽

Amber E. Barnato

Keyword(s):

Palliative Care ◽

Qualitative Content Analysis ◽

Medical Center ◽

Clinical Care ◽

Academic Medical Center ◽

Physical Symptoms ◽

Future Research ◽

Clinical Documentation ◽

Cohen’S Kappa ◽

Cohen's Kappa

Background: Little is known regarding the fidelity of delivery of guideline-recommended components of palliative care in “real world” encounters. Objective: To develop a qualitative coding framework to identify components of clinical palliative care in clinical documentation across care settings. Design: Retrospective review of palliative care clinical documentation from medical providers, with directed qualitative content analysis to identify components of clinical care documented. Setting/Subjects: Purposively sampled deceased patients seen by palliative care at a US academic medical center between 7/1/2011–7/1/2018. Main Outcomes and Measures: The outcome of this work is a coding framework for use in future research. We assessed the robustness of the framework using Cohen’s kappa. Results: We reviewed sixty-two encounters from twenty-six patients. We identified 7 major themes in documentation: (1) addressing physical symptoms, (2) addressing psychological symptoms, (3) establishing illness understanding, (4) supporting decision making, (5) end-of-life planning, (6) understanding psychosocial context, and (7) care coordination. Interrater reliability varied widely between components, with Cohen’s kappa ranging from −.51 to 1. Conclusions: This pilot study provides a coding framework to measure documentation of clinical palliative care components. Several components could not be reliably identified using this framework, suggesting the need for additional measurement strategies.

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Abstract 16125: Impact of COVID-19 on Echocardiography Volume at a Large Academic Medical Center

Circulation ◽

10.1161/circ.142.suppl_3.16125 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 142 (Suppl_3) ◽

Author(s):

Merilyn S Varghese ◽

Jordan B Strom ◽

Sarah Fostello ◽

Warren J Manning

Keyword(s):

Patient Outcomes ◽

Hospital Admissions ◽

Medical Center ◽

Academic Medical Center ◽

Academic Medical ◽

Hospital Systems ◽

The Impact ◽

At Home

Introduction: COVID-19 has significantly impacted hospital systems worldwide. The impact of statewide stay-at-home mandates on echocardiography volumes is unclear. Methods: We queried our institutional echocardiography database from 6/1/2018 to 6/13/2020 to examine rates of transthoracic (TTE), stress (SE), and transesophageal echocardiograms (TEE) prior to and following the COVID-19 Massachusetts stay-at-home order on March 15, 2020. Results: Among 36,377 total studies performed during the study period, mean weekly study volume dropped from 332 + 3 TTEs/week, 30 + 1 SEs/week, and 21 + 1 TEEs/week prior to the stay-at-home order (6/1/2018-3/15/2020) to 158 + 13 TTEs/week, 8 + 2 SEs/week, and 8 + 1 TEEs/week after (% change, -52%, -73%, and -62% respectively, all p < 0.001 when comparing volume prior to March 15 versus after). Weekly TTEs correlated strongly with hospital admissions throughout the study period (r = 0.93, 95% CI 0.89-0.95, p < 0.001) ( Figure ). Outpatient TTEs declined more than inpatient TTEs (% change, -74% vs. -39%, p <0.001). As of 3 weeks following the cessation of the stay-at-home order, TTE, SE, and TEE weekly volumes have increased to 73%, 66%, and 81% of pre-pandemic levels, respectively. Conclusions: Echocardiography volumes fell precipitously following the Massachusetts stay-at-home order, strongly paralleling declines in overall hospitalizations. Outpatient TTEs declined more than inpatient TTEs. Despite lifting of the order, echocardiography volumes remain substantially below pre-pandemic levels. The impact of the decreased use of echocardiographic services on patient outcomes remains to be determined.

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Primary Care Population Management for COVID-19 Patients

10.21203/rs.3.rs-29530/v1 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

MD Deborah Blazey-Martin ◽

FNP Elizabeth Barnhart ◽

Joseph Gillis ◽

Gabriela Andujar Vazquez

Keyword(s):

Primary Care ◽

Nurse Practitioners ◽

Medical Center ◽

Academic Medical Center ◽

Physician Assistants ◽

Population Management ◽

Severe Illness ◽

Management Approach ◽

Primary Care Population ◽

At Home

Abstract BACKGROUND: Most patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 have mild to moderate symptoms manageable at home; however up to 20% develop severe illness requiring additional support. Primary care practices performing population management can use these tools to remotely assess and manage COVID-19 patients and identify those needing additional medical support before becoming critically ill.AIM: We developed an innovative population management approach for managing COVID-19 patients remotely.SETTING: Development, implementation, and evaluation took place in April 2020 within a large urban academic medical center primary care practice.PARTICIPANTS: Our panel consists of 40,000 patients. By April 27, 2020, 305 had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-qPCR. Outreach was performed by teams of doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and nurses.PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: Our innovation includes an algorithm, an EMR component, and a twice daily population report for managing COVID-19 patients remotely.PROGRAM EVALUATION: Of the 305 patients with COVID-19 in our practice at time of submission, 196 had returned to baseline; 54 were admitted to hospitals, six of these died, and 40 were discharged.DISCUSSION: Our population management strategy helped us optimize at-home care for our COVID-19 patients and enabled us to identify those who require inpatient medical care in a timely fashion.

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History of Depression and Increased Risk of Sternal Wound Infection After Cardiothoracic Surgery: A Novel and Potentially Modifiable Risk Factor

Open Forum Infectious Diseases ◽

10.1093/ofid/ofz083 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 6 (3) ◽

Author(s):

Deborah A Theodore ◽

Renee D Goodwin ◽

Yuan (Vivian) Zhang ◽

Nancy Schneider ◽

Rachel J Gordon

Keyword(s):

Risk Factors ◽

Wound Infection ◽

Medical Center ◽

Academic Medical Center ◽

Cardiothoracic Surgery ◽

Sternal Wound Infection ◽

Composite Variable ◽

Increased Risk ◽

History Of ◽

History Of Depression

Abstract Background Sternal wound infection (SWI) is a leading cause of postoperative disease and death; the risk factors for SWI remain incompletely understood. The goal of the current study was to investigate the relationship between a preoperative history of depression and the risk of SWI after cardiothoracic surgery. Methods Among patients undergoing cardiothoracic surgery in a major academic medical center between 2007 and 2012, those in whom SWI developed (n = 129) were matched, by date of surgery, with those in whom it did not (n = 258). Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine the strength of relationships between risk factors and development of infection. History of depression was defined as a composite variable to increase the sensitivity of detection. Results History of depression as defined by our composite variable was associated with increased risk of SWI (adjusted odds ratio, 2.4; 95% confidence interval, 1.2–4.7; P = .01). Staphylococcus aureus was the most common organism isolated. Conclusions History of depression was associated with increased risk of SWI. Future prospective studies are warranted to further investigate this relationship. Depression is highly treatable, and increased efforts to identify and treat depression preoperatively may be a critical step toward preventing infection-related disease and death.

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Rising to the challenge: Pharmacy residents on the front lines during COVID-19 pandemic

American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy ◽

10.1093/ajhp/zxaa273 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 77 (24) ◽

pp. 2101-2106

Author(s):

Emma Uchida ◽

Bianca Long-Fazio ◽

John Marshall ◽

Christopher Fortier

Keyword(s):

Clinical Education ◽

Disaster Response ◽

Medical Center ◽

Academic Medical Center ◽

Scope Of Practice ◽

Residency Programs ◽

Academic Medical ◽

Cross Training ◽

Resident Involvement ◽

Second Wave

Abstract Purpose To provide pharmacy residents’ perspective on how the department of pharmacy at a large academic medical center prepared and managed the surge in admissions of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), to describe how residents were trained for intensive care unit (ICU) staffing, and to provide recommendations on how residency programs nationally could navigate a second wave of COVID-19 admissions or other disaster response situations. Summary The majority of postgraduate year 1 (PGY1) pharmacy residents at the institution were trained for ICU staffing and deployed throughout the hospital to ICU units converted to dedicated COVID-19 ICUs to assist in patient care. The training process included live videoconference lectures about relevant ICU topics and on-site experiences with critical care clinical pharmacists. Based on their experience in training for and participating in ICU care of patients with COVID-19, the pharmacy residents recommend considering additional cross-training of residents, integration of additional clinical education, creation of opportunities for resident involvement in telehealth, advancement of residents’ roles in emergency responses, building robust mental health services, and continued advocacy for the advancement of pharmacists’ and pharmacy residents’ scope of practice. Conclusion The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic caused the institution to reevaluate the allocation of resources, and the department of pharmacy elected to deploy PGY1 pharmacy residents with previous ICU experience to assist in caring for an ICU patient census that had doubled. This experience will be valuable in preparing for another potential wave of COVID-19 cases and a surge in admissions of other groups of patients who deferred care due to the pandemic.

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