Geospatial Disparities in Youth Sexually Transmitted Infections During COVID-19.

INTRODUCTION: Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, routine sexually transmitted infection (STI) screenings decreased, and test positivity rates increased due to limited screening appointments, national-level STI testing supply shortages, and social distancing mandates. It is unclear if adolescent preventive STI screening has returned to pre-pandemic levels and if pre-existing disparities worsened in late-pandemic. METHODS: This cross-sectional study examined 22,974 primary care visits by 13-19-year-olds in the Philadelphia metropolitan area undergoing screening for gonorrhea and chlamydia in a 31-clinic pediatric primary care network during 2018-2022. Using interrupted-time-series analysis and logistic regression, pandemic-related changes in the asymptomatic STI screening rate and test positivity were tracked across patient demographics. Neighborhood moderation was investigated by census-tract-level Child Opportunity Index in 2023. RESULTS: The asymptomatic STI screening rate dropped by 27.8 percentage points (pp) and 13.5pp when the pandemic and national STI test supply shortage began, respectively, but returned to pre-pandemic levels after supply availability was restored in early 2021. Non-Hispanic-Black adolescents had a significant pandemic drop in STI screening rate, and it did not return to prep-andemic levels (-3.6 pp in the late-pandemic period, p<0.01). This decrease was more pronounced in socioeconomically and educationally disadvantaged neighborhoods (7.5 pp and 9.9 pp lower, respectively) than in advantaged neighborhoods (both p<0.001), controlling for sex, age, insurance type and clinic characteristics. CONCLUSIONS: Neighborhood socioeconomic and educational disadvantage amplified racial-ethnic disparities in STI screening during the pandemic. Future interventions should focus on improving primary care utilization of non-Hispanic-Black adolescents to increase routine STI screening and preventive care utilization.

Surgical neonates: A retrospective review of procedures and postoperative outcomes at a quaternary children's hospital.

INTRODUCTION: Neonates have a high incidence of respiratory and cardiac perioperative events. Disease severity and indications for surgical intervention often dovetail with an overall complex clinical course and predispose these infants to adverse long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes and increased length of stay. Our aims were to describe severe and nonsevere early postoperative complications to establish a baseline of care outcomes and to identify subgroups of surgical neonates and procedures for future prospective studies. METHODS: Electronic health record data were examined retrospectively for a cohort of patients who had general anesthesia from January 26, 2015 to August 31, 2018. Inclusion criteria were full-term infants with postmenstrual age less than 44 weeks or premature infants less than 60 weeks postmenstrual age undergoing nonimaging, noncardiac surgery. Severe postoperative complications were defined as mortality, reintubation, positive blood culture, and surgical site infection. Nonsevere early postoperative outcomes were defined as hypoglycemia, hyperglycemia, hypothermia, hyperthermia, and readmission within 30 days. RESULTS: About 2569 procedures were performed in 1842 neonates of which 10.9% were emergency surgeries. There were 120 postoperative severe complications and 965 nonsevere postoperative outcomes. Overall, 30-day mortality was 1.8% for the first procedure performed, with higher mortality seen on subgroup analysis for patients who underwent exploratory laparotomy (10.3%) and congenital lung lesion resection (4.9%). Postoperative areas for improvement included hyperglycemia (13.9%) and hypothermia (7.9%). DISCUSSION: The mortality rate in our study was comparable to other studies of neonatal surgery despite a high rate of emergency surgery and a high prevalence of prematurity in our cohort. The early outcomes data identified areas for improvement, including prevention of postoperative glucose and temperature derangements. CONCLUSIONS: Neonates in this cohort were at risk for severe and nonsevere adverse postoperative outcomes. Future studies are suggested to improve mortality and adverse event rates.

Eliminating Monitor Overuse (EMO) type III effectiveness-deimplementation cluster-randomized trial: Statistical analysis plan.

Background: Deimplementing overused health interventions is essential to maximizing quality and value while minimizing harm, waste, and inefficiencies. Three national guidelines discourage continuous pulse oximetry (SpO2) monitoring in children who are not receiving supplemental oxygen, but the guideline-discordant practice remains prevalent, making it a prime target for deimplementation. This paper details the statistical analysis plan for the Eliminating Monitor Overuse (EMO) SpO2 trial, which compares the effect of two competing deimplementation strategies (unlearning only vs. unlearning plus substitution) on the sustainment of deimplementation of SpO2 monitoring in children with bronchiolitis who are in room air. Methods: The EMO Trial is a hybrid type 3 effectiveness-deimplementation trial with a longitudinal cluster-randomized design, conducted in Pediatric Research in Inpatient Settings Network hospitals. The primary outcome is deimplementation sustainment, analyzed as a longitudinal difference-in-differences comparison between study arms. This analysis will use generalized hierarchical mixed-effects models for longitudinal clustering outcomes. Secondary outcomes include the length of hospital stay and oxygen supplementation duration, modeled using linear mixed-effects regressions. Using the well-established counterfactual approach, we will also perform a mediation analysis of hospital-level mechanistic measures on the association between the deimplementation strategy and the sustainment outcome. Discussion: We anticipate that the EMO Trial will advance the science of deimplementation by providing new insights into the processes, mechanisms, and likelihood of sustained practice change using rigorously designed deimplementation strategies. This pre-specified statistical analysis plan will mitigate reporting bias and support data-driven approaches. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05132322. Registered on 24 November 2021.

Sustainment of continuous pulse oximetry deimplementation: Analysis of Eliminating Monitor Overuse study data from six hospitals.

Using continuous pulse oximetry (cSpO2 ) to monitor children with bronchiolitis who are not receiving supplemental oxygen is a form of medical overuse. In this longitudinal analysis from the Eliminating Monitor Overuse (EMO) study, we aimed to assess changes in cSpO2 overuse before, during, and after intensive cSpO2 -deimplementation efforts in six hospitals. Monitoring data were collected during three phases: "P1" baseline, "P2" active deimplementation (all sites engaged in education and audit and feedback strategies), and "P3" sustainment (a new baseline measured after strategies were withdrawn). Two thousand and fifty-three observations were analyzed. We found that each hospital experienced reductions during active deimplementation (P2), with overall adjusted cSpO2 overuse decreasing from 53%, 95% confidence interval (CI): (49-57) to 22%, 95% CI: (19-25) between P1 and P2. However, following the withdrawal of deimplementation strategies, overuse rebounded in all six sites, with overall adjusted cSpO2 overuse increasing to 37%, 95% CI: (33-41) in P3.

Evaluating the Accuracy of Pulse Oximetry in Children According to Race.

This cross-sectional study investigates the association between race and pulse oximeter accuracy in children in the US.

Measuring quality STI care among adolescent female primary care patients in Philadelphia.

OBJECTIVES: Engagement in guideline-recommended sexually transmitted infection (STI) care is fundamental to ending the STI epidemic in the USA. However, the US 2021-2025 STI National Strategic Plan and STI surveillance reports do not include a framework to measure quality STI care delivery. This study developed and applied an STI Care Continuum that can be used across settings to improve STI care quality, assess adherence to guideline-recommended care and standardise the measurement of progress towards National Strategic goals. METHODS: Review of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention STI Treatment guidelines identified seven distinct steps of STI care for gonorrhoea, chlamydia and syphilis: (1) STI testing indication, (2) STI test completion, (3) HIV testing, (4) STI diagnosis, (5) partner services, (6) STI treatment and (7) STI retesting. Steps 1-4, 6 and 7 for gonorrhoea and/or chlamydia (GC/CT) were measured among females aged 16-17 years with a clinic visit at an academic paediatric primary care network in 2019. We used Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey data to estimate step 1, and electronic health record data for steps 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7. RESULTS: Among 5484 female patients aged 16-17 years, an estimated 44% had an STI testing indication. Among those patients, 17% were tested for HIV, of whom none tested positive, and 43% were tested for GC/CT, 19% of whom were diagnosed with GC/CT. Of these patients, 91% received treatment within 2 weeks and 67% were retested within 6 weeks to 1 year after diagnosis. On retesting, 40% were diagnosed with recurrent GC/CT. CONCLUSIONS: Local application of an STI Care Continuum identified STI testing, retesting and HIV testing as areas for improvement. The development of an STI Care Continuum identified novel measures for monitoring progress towards National Strategic indicators. Similar methods can be applied across jurisdictions to target resources, standardise data collection and reporting and improve STI care quality.

The Relationship Between Directly Observed Therapy for Chlamydia Infections and Retesting Rates in an Adolescent Population.

BACKGROUND: Chlamydia trachomatis is the most common reportable sexually transmitted infection in the United States, with >60% of reported cases occurring in individuals aged 15 to 24 years. US practice guidelines recommend directly observed therapy (DOT) for the treatment of chlamydia in adolescents, but almost no research has been done to evaluate whether DOT results in improved outcomes. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of adolescents who sought care at 1 of 3 clinics within a large academic pediatric health system for a chlamydia infection. The study outcome was return for retesting within 6 months. Unadjusted analyses were performed using χ2 , Mann-Whitney U , and t tests, and adjusted analyses were performed using multivariable logistic regression. RESULTS: Of the 1970 individuals included in the analysis, 1660 (84.3%) received DOT and 310 (15.7%) had a prescription sent to a pharmacy. The population was primarily Black/African American (95.7%) and female (78.2%). After controlling for confounders, individuals who had a prescription sent to a pharmacy were 49% (95% confidence interval, 31%-62%) less likely than individuals who received DOT to return for retesting within 6 months. CONCLUSIONS: Despite clinical guidelines recommending the use of DOT for chlamydia treatment in adolescents, this is the first study to describe the association between DOT and an increase in the number of adolescents and young adults who return for sexually transmitted infection retesting within 6 months. Further research is needed to confirm this finding in diverse populations and explore nontraditional settings for the provision of DOT.