Optimal allocation of physicians improves accessibility and workload disparities in stroke care.

BACKGROUND: Inequalities in access to stroke care and the workload of physicians have been a challenge in recent times. This may be resolved by allocating physicians suitable for the expected demand. Therefore, this study analyzes whether reallocation using an optimization model reduces disparities in spatial access to healthcare and excessive workload. METHODS: This study targeted neuroendovascular specialists and primary stroke centers in Japan and employed an optimization model for reallocating neuroendovascular specialists to reduce the disparity in spatial accessibility to stroke treatment and workload for neuroendovascular specialists in Japan. A two-step floating catchment area method and an inverted two-step floating catchment area method were used to estimate the spatial accessibility and workload of neuroendovascular specialists as a potential crowdedness index. Quadratic programming has been proposed for the reallocation of neuroendovascular specialists. RESULTS: The reallocation of neuroendovascular specialists reduced the disparity in spatial accessibility and the potential crowdedness index. The standard deviation (SD) of the demand-weighted spatial accessibility index improved from 125.625 to 97.625. Simultaneously, the weighted median spatial accessibility index increased from 2.811 to 3.929. Additionally, the SD of the potential crowdedness index for estimating workload disparity decreased from 10,040.36 to 5934.275 after optimization. The sensitivity analysis also showed a similar trend of reducing disparities. CONCLUSIONS: The reallocation of neuroendovascular specialists reduced regional disparities in spatial accessibility to healthcare, potential crowdedness index, and disparities between facilities. Our findings contribute to planning health policies to realize equity throughout the healthcare system.

Spatial-temporal analysis of cerebral infarction mortality in Hokkaido, Japan: an ecological study using a conditional autoregressive model.

BACKGROUND: Accessibility to stroke treatments is a challenge that depends on the place of residence. However, recent advances in medical technology have improved health outcomes. Nevertheless, the geographic heterogeneity of medical resources may increase regional disparities. Therefore, evaluating spatial and temporal influences of the medical system on regional outcomes and advanced treatment of cerebral infarction are important from a health policy perspective. This spatial and temporal study aims to identify factors associated with mortality and to clarify regional disparities in cerebral infarction mortality at municipality level. METHODS: This ecological study used public data between 2010 and 2020 from municipalities in Hokkaido, Japan. We applied spatial and temporal condition autoregression analysis in a Bayesian setting, with inference based on the Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation. The response variable was the number of deaths due to cerebral infarction (ICD-10 code: I63). The explanatory variables were healthcare accessibility and socioeconomic status. RESULTS: The large number of emergency hospitals per 10,000 people (relative risk (RR) = 0.906, credible interval (Cr) = 0.861 to 0.954) was associated with low mortality. On the other hand, the large number of general hospitals per 10,000 people (RR = 1.123, Cr = 1.068 to 1.178) and longer distance to primary stroke centers (RR = 1.064, Cr = 1.014 to 1.110) were associated with high mortality. The standardized mortality ratio decreased from 2010 to 2020 in Hokkaido by approximately 44%. Regional disparity in mortality remained at the same level from 2010 to 2015, after which it narrowed by approximately 5% to 2020. After mapping, we identified municipalities with high mortality rates that emerged in Hokkaido's central and northeastern parts. CONCLUSION: Cerebral infarction mortality rates and the disparity in Hokkaido improved during the study period (2010-2020). This study emphasized that healthcare accessibility through places such as emergency hospitals and primary stroke centers was important in determining cerebral infarction mortality at the municipality level. In addition, this study identified municipalities with high mortality rates that require healthcare policy changes. The impact of socioeconomic factors on stroke is a global challenge, and improving access to healthcare may reduce disparities in outcomes.

The health economic effects of an imaging technology-based telemedicine system for rural neuro-emergency patient care.

OBJECTIVE: "Join," an imaging technology-based telemedicine system, allows simultaneous radiological information sharing between physically remote institutions, virtually connecting advanced medical institutions and rural hospitals. This study aimed to elucidate the health economics effect of Join for neurological telemedicine in rural areas in Hokkaido, Japan. METHODS: Information concerning 189 requests for patient transfer from Furano Kyokai Hospital, a regional rural hospital, to Asahikawa Medical University Hospital (AMUH), an advanced academic medical institution, was retrospectively collected. The Join system was established between Furano Kyokai Hospital and AMUH in February 2019. Data collected from patients between April 2017 and December 2018 were included in the non-Join group, and those collected between February 2019 and October 2020 were included in the Join group. Clinical variables, reasons for patient transfer requests, duration of hospital stay, and medical costs per patient were analyzed between these two groups. Furthermore, clinical characteristics were compared between patients who were transferred and not transferred based on Join. RESULTS: More patients were discharged < 7 days after transfer to AMUH in the non-Join group compared with the Join group (p = 0.02). When focusing on the Join group, more patients who were not transferred were discharged < 1 week (p < 0.01). On the other hand, more patients required surgery (p = 0.01) when transferred. The ratio of patients whose medical cost was < USD5000 substantially decreased, from 33% for the non-Join group to 13% for the Join group. CONCLUSIONS: An imaging technology-based telemedicine system, Join, contributed to reducing unnecessary neuro-emergency patient transfer in a remote rural area, and telemedicine with an integrated smartphone system allowed medical personnel to effectively triage at a distance neuro-emergency patients requiring advanced tertiary care.

Analysis of Factors Inhibiting the Dissemination of Telemedicine in Japan: Using the Interpretive Structural Modeling.

Background: Telemedicine is not significantly spreading globally and large variations in its availability and use exist internationally. Although many factors already inhibit the dissemination of telemedicine, its complexly intertwined factors make it more difficult to solve this problem. This study aimed to analyze and visualize relationships among factors inhibiting the dissemination of telemedicine. We applied the interpretive structural modeling method and cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification analysis. Materials and Methods: Factors inhibiting the dissemination of telemedicine in Japan were extracted by literature review and hearing from four medical informatics experts belonging to a university or hospital using the Kawakita Jiro method. Results: Eighteen factors were extracted as those inhibiting the dissemination of telemedicine service in Japan: initial and operation cost, research data, legal development, profitability, usability, human resources, image quality, network speed, information security, technical limitation, restriction for clinical practice, practice continuity, target use case, burden for physicians, respondence, risks for clinical safety, understanding of medical staff, and understanding of patients. The hierarchical structure chart showed a nine-level structure and the cross-impact matrix showed the relationship among factors and the classification of them inhibiting the dissemination of telemedicine. Discussion: We found that the underlying factors were high implementation and operation costs, low research data, and risks for clinical safety. Implementation and operation costs, research data, legal development, and profitability have high driving power; thus, it is expected that the elimination of these inhibiting factors would lead to the dissemination of telemedicine. Conclusions: There are many kinds of factors inhibiting the dissemination of telemedicine in Japan. The result of this showed the structure of these factors visually and could be useful to solve the problem inhibiting the dissemination of telemedicine effectively and efficiently.

[Willingness to Acceptance for the Information Leakage of Medical Information Data Using the Contingent Valuation Method].

Appropriate information security measures are very important for today's highly computerized hospitals to maintain the trust from patients. If once the personal information leakage of medical information was occurred, the hospital could lose their trust that has built for long time so far. It is important for hospitals to know the impact of the leakage accident previously advance to decide the investment for information security. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of medical information leakage. The comforting fee for the patient's mental damage as the willingness to accept (WTA) was estimated, when the information leak occurred from a hospital using the contingent valuation method (CVM). Questionnaire survey was conducted using an internet survey service in Japan. We asked for 300 citizens about the use of personal information communication equipment and information security measures and their awareness for the information leakage. In addition, we presented a hypothetical scenario regarding information leakage of own medical information, asked the WTA as the comforting fee by the one choice of acceptance or rejection for the presented fee. In 300 responses, 190 were could be used for WTA estimation. WTA as the comforting fee when the information leakage of medical care information occurred, was estimated 570,541 yen in total. The result was similar with the value estimated by the damage compensation payment estimation model.

[Examination of the Important Factor during Implementation of the Medical Equipment and Hospital Information System Using the Correlation Analysis].

During medical equipment and hospital information system implementation in small- and medium-sized hospitals, the system introduction often advances after system selection by the management. However, in reality, the requirements of the systems between the management and staff layers were different. Therefore, the system did not often satisfy staff demands, resulting in increased dissatisfaction of the staff for the system. It was important to consider the staff's opinion at the selection of the system manufacturer, vendor, and system to resolve their dissatisfaction for a system. In this study, we let the staff decrease these dissatisfactions in selecting a system manufacturer, vendor, and a system at the system implementation. Therefore, we consider a more useful system implementation method through the staff's motivation building by the questionnaire result analysis. The questionnaire was carried out after each event in relation to system implementation. The enforcement of event for system implementation was useful for the staff's motivation building, because we can consider the staff's opinion with staff understanding. During system implementation, it was important and/or necessary for building the staff's motivation for the success of the system implementation and to utilize it after the implementation.

Growth hormone is a cellular senescence target in pituitary and nonpituitary cells.

Premature proliferative arrest in benign or early-stage tumors induced by oncoproteins, chromosomal instability, or DNA damage is associated with p53/p21 activation, culminating in either senescence or apoptosis, depending on cell context. Growth hormone (GH) elicits direct peripheral metabolic actions as well as growth effects mediated by insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1). Locally produced peripheral tissue GH, in contrast to circulating pituitary-derived endocrine GH, has been proposed to be both proapoptotic and prooncogenic. Pituitary adenomas expressing and secreting GH are invariably benign and exhibit DNA damage and a senescent phenotype. We therefore tested effects of nutlin-induced p53-mediated senescence in rat and human pituitary cells. We show that DNA damage senescence induced by nutlin triggers the p53/p21 senescent pathway, with subsequent marked induction of intracellular pituitary GH in vitro. In contrast, GH is not induced in cells devoid of p53. Furthermore we show that p53 binds specific GH promoter motifs and enhances GH transcription and secretion in senescent pituitary adenoma cells and also in nonpituitary (human breast and colon) cells. In vivo, treatment with nutlin results in up-regulation of both p53 and GH in the pituitary gland, as well as increased GH expression in nonpituitary tissues (lung and liver). Intracrine GH acts in pituitary cells as an apoptosis switch for p53-mediated senescence, likely protecting the pituitary adenoma from progression to malignancy. Unlike in the pituitary, in nonpituitary cells GH exerts antiapoptotic properties. Thus, the results show that GH is a direct p53 transcriptional target and fulfills criteria as a p53 target gene. Induced GH is a readily measurable cell marker for p53-mediated cellular senescence.

Behavioral Analysis of Visitors to a Medical Institution's Website Using Markov Chain Monte Carlo Methods.

BACKGROUND: Consistent with the "attention, interest, desire, memory, action" (AIDMA) model of consumer behavior, patients collect information about available medical institutions using the Internet to select information for their particular needs. Studies of consumer behavior may be found in areas other than medical institution websites. Such research uses Web access logs for visitor search behavior. At this time, research applying the patient searching behavior model to medical institution website visitors is lacking. OBJECTIVE: We have developed a hospital website search behavior model using a Bayesian approach to clarify the behavior of medical institution website visitors and determine the probability of their visits, classified by search keyword. METHODS: We used the website data access log of a clinic of internal medicine and gastroenterology in the Sapporo suburbs, collecting data from January 1 through June 31, 2011. The contents of the 6 website pages included the following: home, news, content introduction for medical examinations, mammography screening, holiday person-on-duty information, and other. The search keywords we identified as best expressing website visitor needs were listed as the top 4 headings from the access log: clinic name, clinic name + regional name, clinic name + medical examination, and mammography screening. Using the search keywords as the explaining variable, we built a binomial probit model that allows inspection of the contents of each purpose variable. Using this model, we determined a beta value and generated a posterior distribution. We performed the simulation using Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods with a noninformation prior distribution for this model and determined the visit probability classified by keyword for each category. RESULTS: In the case of the keyword "clinic name," the visit probability to the website, repeated visit to the website, and contents page for medical examination was positive. In the case of the keyword "clinic name and regional name," the probability for a repeated visit to the website and the mammography screening page was negative. In the case of the keyword "clinic name + medical examination," the visit probability to the website was positive, and the visit probability to the information page was negative. When visitors referred to the keywords "mammography screening," the visit probability to the mammography screening page was positive (95% highest posterior density interval = 3.38-26.66). CONCLUSIONS: Further analysis for not only the clinic website but also various other medical institution websites is necessary to build a general inspection model for medical institution websites; we want to consider this in future research. Additionally, we hope to use the results obtained in this study as a prior distribution for future work to conduct higher-precision analysis.

Trends for the Geographic Distribution of Radiological Resources in Hokkaido, Japan: Data Analysis Using Gini Coefficient and Herfindahl-Hirschman Index.

The aim of this study is to analyze the maldistribution and the trends in the geographic distribution of radiological resources in secondary medical areas of Hokkaido. The distribution was measured by combining the Gini coefficient (GC), which is an indicator of inequality of distribution, and the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI), which is mainly used to assess market concentration. Data concerning the distribution of radiological resources, such as CT, MRI, radiotherapy facilities (RTF), radiological technologists (RT), and medical doctors were obtained from official publications. CT was more equally distributed, and RTF was more inequality than other radiological resources in 2014. Radiological resources excluded CT were higher degree of concentration than population distribution, and it showed that they were located relatively more intensively in urban areas than in rural areas. During the period 1999-2014, the GC for CT, MRI, RTF, and RT decreased, while the HHI increased. These trends indicated increased equality of distribution of CT, MRI, RTF, and RT and the concentration in urban areas. This study suggested that GC and HHI could be powerful indicators for allocation planning of medical resources with further analysis of the maldistribution of medical resources.

Ectopic ACTH syndrome caused by desmopressin-responsive thymic neuroendocrine tumor.

A 32-year-old Chinese woman with rapid weight gain and progressive edema was found to have typical Cushingoid features. Her endocrine data were consistent with a diagnosis of ACTH-dependent Cushing's syndrome. To differentiate ectopic ACTH syndrome (EAS) from Cushing's disease (CD), various dynamic endocrine and imaging tests were performed. Her ACTH response was negative to corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) and positive to desmopressin. Magnetic resonance imaging of the pituitary showed no mass lesion. Computed tomography scan of the chest revealed a large mass (21 × 15 mm) in the anterior mediastinum, where positron emission tomography showed accumulation of [(18)F] fluorodeoxyglucose. Selective venous sampling showed marked step-up in ACTH level in the internal thoracic vein but not in the cavernous sinus after CRH stimulation. These data are compatible with the diagnosis of EAS. The resected tumor was pathologically consistent with thymic neuroendocrine tumor (NET) positive for ACTH by immunohistochemistry and abundant V1b receptor gene expression by RT-PCR. Postoperatively, her circulating ACTH/cortisol levels became normalized, and responded to stimulation with CRH but not with desmopressin. Her Cushingoid appearance gradually disappeared, and she was free from recurrence 5 years after surgery. This is a rare case of desmopressin-responsive EAS caused by thymic NET with predominant V1b gene expression, which was successfully localized by imaging modalities combined with selective venous sampling.

Effectiveness of Leakage Prevention System in Communicating Important Diagnostic Information.

In Japan, oversights of imaging or pathology examination results and diagnoses provided to patients have become a major problem because they affect patient prognosis. We have jointly developed and used the "Anti-Impact Information Leakage Prevention System (AiR)" since December 2019. This system works effectively because its introduction, which uses a data warehouse, has increased versatility and considerably improved the situation of confirmation and communication. We believe this system is working effectively.

Optimal Transport System for Acute Ischemic Stroke Patients: A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis.

This study conducted cost utility analysis comparing 4 systems of transporting acute ischemic stroke patients in Hokkaido, Japan. Hypothetical patients were generated on a geographic information system, and their outcomes were estimated according to their transport time to hospitals administering tissue plasminogen activator and/or endovascular thrombectomy. The transport systems where a neurointerventionist traveled for earlier endovascular thrombectomy were most cost-effective in some rural areas, while direct transportation to comprehensive stroke centers was more cost-effective in other areas.

Access to mechanical thrombectomy and ischemic stroke mortality in Japan: a spatial ecological study.

Background: Advances in stroke treatment have greatly improved outcomes; however, disparities in access to treatment might increase. Achieving equitable access to stroke treatment is a health policy challenge, as rapid treatment is essential for positive outcomes. This ecological cross-sectional study aimed to determine the relationship between the disparities in spatial accessibility to mechanical thrombectomy (SAMT) and stroke mortality rates in Japan, hypothesizing that disparities in SAMT may increase the differences in stroke mortality between regions. Methods: We used the average number of ischemic stroke (IS) deaths between 2020 and 2021 as the response variable; and SAMT, medical resources, and socioeconomic characteristics of each municipality as explanatory variables. A conditional autoregressive model was used to examine the association between the risk of stroke mortality and SAMT. The standardized mortality ratio (SMR) was mapped to understand the nationwide disparities in stroke mortality risk. Results: The median number of IS deaths was 17.5 persons per year in the municipalities (2020 to 2021). The study also found that municipalities with low SAMT were located in the northern part of Japan. The non-spatial regression model results indicated that poor accessibility, a small proportion of bachelor's degrees or higher, and a high proportion of workers in secondary industries were related to high IS mortality. Three models were evaluated using spatial analysis; Model 1 with accessibility indicators alone, Model 2 with medical resources added to Model 1, and Model 3 with socioeconomic characteristics added to Model 2. In Models 1 and 2, the population-weighted spatial accessibility index (PWSAI) showed a significant negative relationship with stroke mortality. However, this was not evident in Model 3. Mapping using Model 3 showed that the high-risk areas were predominantly located in northern Japan, excluding Hokkaido. Conclusion: Access to mechanical thrombectomy was estimated, and regional differences were observed. The relationship between accessibility and IS mortality is unknown; however, regardless of accessibility, municipalities with a high proportion of workers in secondary industries and a small proportion with bachelor's degrees or above are at risk of death from stroke.