scholarly journals Greater distance to an academic medical center is associated with poorer melanoma prognostic factors: The University of Colorado Experience

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


Author(s):  
Ina Liko ◽  
Lisa Corbin ◽  
Eric Tobin ◽  
Christina L Aquilante ◽  
Yee Ming Lee

Abstract Disclaimer In an effort to expedite the publication of articles related to the COVID-19 pandemic, AJHP is posting these manuscripts online as soon as possible after acceptance. Accepted manuscripts have been peer-reviewed and copyedited, but are posted online before technical formatting and author proofing. These manuscripts are not the final version of record and will be replaced with the final article (formatted per AJHP style and proofed by the authors) at a later time. Purpose We describe the implementation of a pharmacist-provided pharmacogenomics (PGx) service in an executive health program (EHP) at an academic medical center. Summary As interest in genomic testing grows, pharmacists have the opportunity to advance the use of PGx in EHPs, in collaboration with other healthcare professionals. In November 2018, a pharmacist-provided PGx service was established in the EHP at the University of Colorado Hospital. The team members included 3 physicians, a pharmacist trained in PGx, a registered dietitian/exercise physiologist, a nurse, and 2 medical assistants. We conducted 4 preimplementation steps: (1) assessment of the patient population, (2) selection of a PGx test, (3) establishment of a visit structure, and (4) selection of a billing model. The PGx consultations involved two 1-hour visits. The first visit encompassed pretest PGx education, review of the patient’s current medications and previous medication intolerances, and DNA sample collection for genotyping. After this visit, the pharmacist developed a therapeutic plan based on the PGx test results, discussed the results and plan with the physician, and created a personalized PGx report. At the second visit, the pharmacist reviewed the PGx test results, personalized the PGx report, and discussed the PGx-guided therapeutic plan with the patient. Overall, the strategy worked well; minor challenges included evaluation of gene-drug pairs with limited PGx evidence, communication of information to non-EHP providers, scheduling issues, and reimbursement. Conclusion The addition of a PGx service within an EHP was feasible and provided pharmacists the opportunity to lead PGx efforts and collaborate with physicians to expand the precision medicine footprint at an academic medical center.


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.


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.


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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