Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources for Inpatient Deterioration Detection With Time-Series Vital Signs: Design and Implementation Study.

BACKGROUND: Vital signs have been widely adopted in in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA) assessment, which plays an important role in inpatient deterioration detection. As the number of early warning systems and artificial intelligence applications increases, health care information exchange and interoperability are becoming more complex and difficult. Although Health Level 7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) have already developed a vital signs profile, it is not sufficient to support IHCA applications or machine learning-based models. OBJECTIVE: In this paper, for IHCA instances with vital signs, we define a new implementation guide that includes data mapping, a system architecture, a workflow, and FHIR applications. METHODS: We interviewed 10 experts regarding health care system integration and defined an implementation guide. We then developed the FHIR Extract Transform Load to map data to FHIR resources. We also integrated an early warning system and machine learning pipeline. RESULTS: The study data set includes electronic health records of adult inpatients who visited the En-Chu-Kong hospital. Medical staff regularly measured these vital signs at least 2 to 3 times per day during the day, night, and early morning. We used pseudonymization to protect patient privacy. Then, we converted the vital signs to FHIR observations in the JSON format using the FHIR Extract Transform Load application. The measured vital signs include systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, and body temperature. According to clinical requirements, we also extracted the electronic health record information to the FHIR server. Finally, we integrated an early warning system and machine learning pipeline using the FHIR RESTful application programming interface. CONCLUSIONS: We successfully demonstrated a process that standardizes health care information for inpatient deterioration detection using vital signs. Based on the FHIR definition, we also provided an implementation guide that includes data mapping, an integration process, and IHCA assessment using vital signs. We also proposed a clarifying system architecture and possible workflows. Based on FHIR, we integrated the 3 different systems in 1 dashboard system, which can effectively solve the complexity of the system in the medical staff workflow.

Improved inpatient deterioration detection in general wards by using time-series vital signs.

Although in-hospital cardiac arrest is uncommon, it has a high mortality rate. Risk identification of at-risk patients is critical for post-cardiac arrest survival rates. Early warning scoring systems are generally used to identify hospitalized patients at risk of deterioration. However, these systems often require clinical data that are not always regularly measured. We developed a more accurate, machine learning-based model to predict clinical deterioration. The time series early warning score (TEWS) used only heart rate, systolic blood pressure, and respiratory data, which are regularly measured in general wards. We tested the performance of the TEWS in two tasks performed with data from the electronic medical records of 16,865 adult admissions and compared the results with those of other classifications. The TEWS detected more deteriorations with the same level of specificity as the different algorithms did when inputting vital signs data from 48 h before an event. Our framework improved in-hospital cardiac arrest prediction and demonstrated that previously obtained vital signs data can be used to identify at-risk patients in real-time. This model may be an alternative method for detecting patient deterioration.

Mesoporous hydroxyapatite as a carrier of olanzapine for long-acting antidepression treatment in rats with induced depression.

An antidepressant carrier, mesoporous hydroxyapatite olanzapine (mesoHAP-OLZ), was designed to maintain 3weeks of constant medication release. The carrier was intramuscularly (IM) injected, where cellular activity played a role in achieving the goal of constant release. The efficiency of the treatment was evaluated from 3 perspectives in in vivo studies: locomotor activities, biomarkers, and learning and memory ability. MesoHAP-OLZ can increase the locomotor activity in rats with induced depression determined by open field test (OFT) and forced swim test (FST). Serotonin (5-HT), one of the most important biomarker in depression can also be increased by mesoHAP-OLZ, leading to increased hippocampus activity as measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). MesoHAP-OLZ can also improve learning and memory ability in rats with induced depression during Morris water maze (MWM) test. Our findings further show that mesoHAP-OLZ can provide long-term drug release with a single IM injection, helping to solve the problem of non-adherent medication intake that often occurs in antidepressant therapy.

Modified lightwand intubation in a child with spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita.

This is the case report on a 1-year 9-month-old boy suffering from spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita who was successfully intubated with our modified lightwand intubation procedure for general anesthesia to undergo bilateral herniorrhaphy despite the great likelihood of facing a difficult airway because of unstable cervical spine. We bent the pediatric wand after it was encased in an endotracheal (ET) tube of appropriate diameter. The light tip of the wand was let to protrude just out of the bevel of the ET tube. Once the light bulb properly transilluminated the trachea, the ET tube was threaded gently into the trachea. The patient recovered from anesthesia smoothly and was discharged on the next day. This maneuver can facilitate both visual and tactile confirmations of the position and proper tube size. The effectiveness and safety of our modified lightwand intubation procedure is well demonstrated.

General anesthetic management for diagnostic splenectomy in a patient with paraneoplastic pemphigus.

Paraneoplastic pemphigus (PNP) is an autoantibody-mediated mucocutaneous blistering disease that often occurs with confirmed or occult malignancy. It is often accompanied by extensive eruption of respiratory mucosa and can lead to respiratory failure. The indications for anesthetic management in patients with PNP are rare due to the high risk of generating further eruption of respiratory mucosa during intubation, with potentially disastrous consequences. We report the anesthetic management in a 43-year-old woman with PNP scheduled for diagnostic splenectomy. The surgery was postponed due to persistent hoarseness, diffuse oral-pharyngeal mucositis, and laryngeal erosion. Methylprednisolone 40 mg 3 times daily was prescribed for controlling the mucosa lesions. Two weeks later, after the improvement of mucosal lesions, direct laryngoscopic intubation and the scheduled splenectomy were performed under general anesthesia. Pathology of the spleen showed low-grade B-cell lymphoma had induced PNP. Flexible fiberoptic bronchoscopic examination revealed neither bleeding nor bullae formation in the trachea either immediately after intubation or before extubation. The tracheal mucosa is highly susceptible to mechanical stimulation with direct laryngoscopic intubation. Cuff inflation and positive pressure ventilation, awareness of the disease characteristics of PNP, a sufficient course of steroid therapy beforehand, and adequate mucosal protection are essential to the uneventful anesthetic management of the patient with PNP involving the respiratory tract mucosa.