Validation of Early Warning Scores at Two Long-Term Acute Care Hospitals.

OBJECTIVES: Early warning scores were developed to identify high-risk patients on the hospital wards. Research on early warning scores has focused on patients in short-term acute care hospitals, but there are other settings, such as long-term acute care hospitals, where these tools could be useful. However, the accuracy of early warning scores in long-term acute care hospitals is unknown. DESIGN: Observational cohort study. SETTING: Two long-term acute care hospitals in Illinois from January 2002 to September 2017. PATIENTS: Admitted adult long-term acute care hospital patients. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Demographic characteristics, vital signs, laboratory values, nursing flowsheet data, and outcomes data were collected from the electronic health record. The accuracy of individual variables, the Modified Early Warning Score, the National Early Warning Score version 2, and our previously developed electronic Cardiac Arrest Risk Triage score were compared for predicting the need for acute hospital transfer or death using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. A total of 12,497 patient admissions were included, with 3,550 experiencing the composite outcome. The median age was 65 (interquartile range, 54-74), 46% were female, and the median length of stay in the long-term acute care hospital was 27 days (interquartile range, 17-40 d), with an 8% in-hospital mortality. Laboratory values were the best predictors, with blood urea nitrogen being the most accurate (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, 0.63) followed by albumin, bilirubin, and WBC count (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, 0.61). Systolic blood pressure was the most accurate vital sign (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, 0.60). Electronic Cardiac Arrest Risk Triage (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, 0.72) was significantly more accurate than National Early Warning Score version 2 (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, 0.66) and Modified Early Warning Score (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, 0.65; p < 0.01 for all pairwise comparisons). CONCLUSIONS: In this retrospective cohort study, we found that the electronic Cardiac Arrest Risk Triage score was significantly more accurate than Modified Early Warning Score and National Early Warning Score version 2 for predicting acute hospital transfer and mortality. Because laboratory values were more predictive than vital signs and the average length of stay in an long-term acute care hospital is much longer than short-term acute hospitals, developing a score specific to the long-term acute care hospital population would likely further improve accuracy, thus allowing earlier identification of high-risk patients for potentially life-saving interventions.

The House Cup: Using Longitudinal Gamification to Improve Didactic Attendance.

OBJECTIVE: Determine if a point-based attendance system combined with longitudinal gamification is feasible and improves didactic session attendance and learner perceptions at our internal medicine residency. METHODS: A prospective before-after cohort study. Weekly attendance was tracked from June 2022 through April 2023 at our university-affiliated internal medicine residency program. We implemented a point-based longitudinal game incentivizing residents to attend didactics with positive reinforcement in July 2022 (C: carrot). We added tiered positive reinforcement and positive punishment to the game in January 2023 (CS: carrot and stick). Attendance during these periods was compared to pre (P) and postintervention (S). Perceptions were assessed during the P, C, and CS periods with Likert scale ratings. RESULTS: CS was associated with higher attendance than other study periods (P = .002). Median attendance was P-51% (IQR 37.5-64.5), C-65% (IQR 50-74), CS-81% (IQR 78-94), and S-66% (IQR 63-71). Perceptions were similar during pre and intervention study periods, including perceptions of camaraderie (P-4.4, C-4.4, CS-4.5; P = .56), interest in attending didactic sessions (P-3.7, C-3.4, CS-3.2; P = .21), and mandate as the primary reason for attending didactics (P-3.1, C-3.1, CS-3.2; P = .96). CONCLUSIONS: A point-based attendance system combined with a longitudinal game that included tiered positive reinforcement and positive punishment was feasible and associated with higher didactic attendance but not associated with changes in resident perceptions.

Aligning patient values and code status: Choice of Diction's Effect (CODE) study.

BACKGROUND: Decisions regarding resuscitation after cardiac arrest are critical from ethical, patient satisfaction, outcome, and healthcare cost standpoints. Physician-reported discussion barriers include topic discomfort, fear of time commitment, and difficulty articulating end-of-life concepts. The influence of language used in these discussions has not been tested. This study explored whether utilizing the alternate term "allow (a) natural death" changed code status decisions in hospitalized patients versus "do not resuscitate" (DNR). METHODS: All patients age 65 and over admitted to a general medicine hospital teaching service were screened (English-speaking, not ICU-level care, no active psychiatric illness, no substance misuse, no active DNR). Participants were randomized to resuscitation discussions with either DNR or "allow natural death" as the "no code" phrasing. Outcomes included patient resuscitation decision, satisfaction with and duration of the conversation, and decision correlation with illness severity and predicted resuscitation success. RESULTS: 102 participants were randomized to the "allow natural death" (N = 49) or DNR (N = 53) arms. The overall "no code" rate for our sample of hospitalized general medicine inpatients age >65 was 16.7%, with 13% in the DNR and 20.4% in the "allow natural death" arms (p = 0.35). Discussion length was similar in the DNR and "allow natural death" arms (3.9 + 3.2 vs. 4.9 + 3.9 minutes), and not significantly different (p = 0.53). Over 90% of participants were highly satisfied with their code status decision, without difference between arms (p = 0.49). CONCLUSIONS: Participants' code status discussions did not differ in "no code" rate between "allow natural death" and DNR arms but were short in length and had high patient satisfaction. Previously reported code status discussion barriers were not encountered. It is appropriate to screen code status in all hospitalized patients regardless of phrasing used.