Student High Value Care Initiative: a Longitudinal Model for Student-Led Implementation and Scholarship.

BACKGROUND: Educating medical trainees to practice high value care is a critical component to improving quality of care and should be introduced at the beginning of medical education. AIM: To create a successful educational model that provides medical students and junior faculty with experiential learning in quality improvement and mentorship opportunities, and produce effective quality initiatives. SETTING: A tertiary medical center affiliated with a medical school in New York City. PARTICIPANTS: First year medical students, junior faculty in hospital medicine, and a senior faculty course director. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: The Student High Value Care initiative is a longitudinal initiative comprised of six core elements: (1) project development, (2) value improvement curriculum, (3) mentorship, (4), Institutional support, (5) scholarship, and (6) student leadership. PROGRAM EVALUATION: During the first 3 years, 68 medical students and ten junior faculty participated in 10 quality improvement projects. Nine projects were successful in their measured outcomes, with statistically significant improvements. Nine had an abstract accepted to a regional or national meeting, and seven produced publications in peer-reviewed literature. DISCUSSION: In the first 3 years of the initiative, we successfully engaged medical students and junior faculty to create and support the implementation of successful quality improvement initiatives. Since that time, the program continues to offer meaningful mentorship and scholarship opportunities.

Risk stratification for hydronephrosis in the evaluation of acute kidney injury: a cross-sectional analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To validate an existing clinical decision support tool to risk-stratify patients with acute kidney injury (AKI) for hydronephrosis and compare the risk stratification framework with nephrology consultant recommendations. SETTING: Cross-sectional study of hospitalised adults with AKI who had a renal ultrasound (RUS) ordered at a large, tertiary, academic medical centre. PARTICIPANTS: Two hundred and eighty-one patients were included in the study cohort. Based on the risk stratification framework, 111 (40%), 76 (27%) and 94 (33%) patients were in the high-risk, medium-risk and low-risk groups for hydronephrosis, respectively. OUTCOMES: Outcomes were the presence of unilateral or bilateral hydronephrosis on RUS. RESULTS: Thirty-five patients (12%) were found to have hydronephrosis. The high-risk group had 86% sensitivity and 67% specificity for identifying hydronephrosis. A nephrology consult was involved in 168 (60%) patients and RUS was recommended by the nephrology service in 95 (57%) cases. Among patients with a nephrology consultation, 9 (56%) of the 16 total patients with hydronephrosis were recommended to obtain an RUS. CONCLUSIONS: We further externally validated a risk stratification framework for hydronephrosis. Clinical decision support systems may be useful to supplement clinical judgement in the evaluation of AKI.

A Student-Led, Multifaceted Intervention to Decrease Unnecessary Folate Ordering in the Inpatient Setting.

To reduce unnecessary laboratory testing, a three-phase intervention was designed by students to decrease serum folate laboratory testing in the inpatient setting. These included an educational phase, a personalized feedback phase, and the uncoupling of orders in the electronic medical record. Average monthly serum folate ordering decreased by 87% over the course of the intervention, from 98.4 orders per month at baseline to 12.7 per month in the last phase of the intervention. In the segmented regression analysis, joint ordering of folate and vitamin B12 significantly decreased during the intervention ([INCREMENT]slope = -4.22 tests/month, p = .0089), whereas single ordering of vitamin B12 significantly increased ([INCREMENT]slope = +5.6 tests/month; p < .001). Our intervention was successful in modifying ordering patterns to decrease testing for a deficiency that is rare in the U.S. population.

The effect of charge display on cost of care and physician practice behaviors: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: While studies have been published in the last 30 years that examine the effect of charge display during physician decision-making, no analysis or synthesis of these studies has been conducted. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to determine the type and quality of charge display studies that have been published; to synthesize this information in the form of a literature review. METHODS: English-language articles published between 1982 and 2013 were identified using MEDLINE, Web of Knowledge, ABI-Inform, and Academic Search Premier. Article titles, abstracts, and text were reviewed for relevancy by two authors. Data were then extracted and subsequently synthesized and analyzed. RESULTS: Seventeen articles were identified that fell into two topic categories: the effect of charge display on radiology and laboratory test ordering versus on medication choice. Seven articles were randomized controlled trials, eight were pre-intervention vs. post-intervention studies, and two interventions had a concurrent control and intervention groups, but were not randomized. Twelve studies were conducted in a clinical environment, whereas five were survey studies. Of the nine clinically based interventions that examined test ordering, seven had statistically significant reductions in cost and/or the number of tests ordered. Two of the three clinical studies looking at medication expenditures found significant reductions in cost. In the survey studies, physicians consistently chose fewer tests or lower cost options in the theoretical scenarios presented. CONCLUSIONS: In the majority of studies, charge information changed ordering and prescribing behavior.

Clinical investigations in primary care.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that represents the most common form of dementia. The most prominent feature of AD is the decline in cognitive function, with an early impairment of episodic memory. The memory deficit of an AD patient is characterized by the amnestic syndrome of the medial temporal type. As the disease progresses, the condition often manifests in language disorders, visuospatial deficits and executive dysfunctions. Patients often have neuropsychiatric disturbances, as apathy and psychotic symptoms. Loss of autonomy follows cognitive impairment. The clinical diagnosis of AD is based on a complete medical examination with a neuropsychological evaluation. The FCSRT (free and cued selective reminding test) is recommended for the identification of the amnestic syndrome of the medial temporal type, which is defined by: (1) a very poor free recall and (2) a decreased total recall due to an insufficient effect of cueing. The neuropsychological tests should also assess other cognitive functions that may be perturbed in AD, such as executive functions, praxis, visuospatial capacities and language. Neuroimaging and biological exams (genetics, biomarkers) are of great utility in the evaluation. Other medical, neurological, or psychiatric disorders which could account for the impairment in memory and related symptoms must be always investigated.

Frontal Assessment Battery is a marker of dorsolateral and medial frontal functions: A SPECT study in frontotemporal dementia.

The objective of this study is to identify the cerebral regions that are assessed by the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB). Using SPM voxel-based analysis, we looked for correlations between FAB performance and brain SPECT perfusion in 47 patients with the frontal variant of frontotemporal dementia (fv-FTD) recruited by the French FTD research network, a multicentre initiative of French University hospitals with expertise in the field of dementia. A significant correlation was found between FAB performance and perfusion in the medial and dorsolateral frontal cortex bilaterally, independently of age, gender and MMSE. No correlations were observed with orbital frontal or parietal perfusion, in spite of the presence of hypoperfusion in these areas, or with perfusion of any other cortical or subcortical region. These findings confirm that the FAB is an adequate tool for assessing functions related to the dorsolateral and medial frontal cortex, and is thus useful for the evaluation of diseases associated with frontal dysfunction.

fMRI activation changes during successful episodic memory encoding and recognition in amnestic mild cognitive impairment relative to cognitively healthy older adults.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Previous functional MRI studies in individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (AMCI), a putative, prodromal form of Alzheimer's disease, reveal substantial regional changes in brain activation during episodic memory function. METHODS: Functional MRI was applied to examine changes in brain activation during different stages of episodic memory function using a subsequent memory task in individuals with AMCI relative to older normal controls. RESULTS: We found that the AMCI group displayed greater activation in the right hippocampus but less activation in the frontal cortex relative to the older normal control group during intentional encoding of items that were subsequently recognized. We observed nearly the opposite pattern of results for successful recognition. The AMCI group displayed less activation in the medial temporal cortex but greater activation in the frontal cortex. In addition, the AMCI group showed reduced activation in the medial temporal and frontal cortices during incidental encoding of novel information during recognition. CONCLUSION: The results of the present study suggest that brain activation differences in individuals with AMCI are modulated by the stage of episodic memory examined (i.e. intentional vs. incidental encoding vs. recognition). These observations may help to clarify some of the conflicting findings regarding brain activation changes in AMCI.