Home care in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic: A neglected population?

INTRODUCTION: Older persons and those with pre-existing conditions are at the biggest risk for severe illness and death from COVID-19. In Germany, more than 3.3 million people out of this population receive care in their own homes. User representatives and nurses have criticized health policy during the COVID-19 pandemic as inappropriate for the home care setting. This policy analysis, therefore, aims to answer the question, which policy changes should be made following Bardach's framework. PRE-PANDEMIC POLICY: Home care in Germany is mainly funded through the statutory long-term care and statutory health insurance funds. It focuses on compensation of physical functioning, selected therapy-related tasks prescribed by a physician and is not well integrated with acute and primary care. POLICY PROBLEMS: The pandemic highlighted the following challenges: nurses are excluded from policy decisions; epidemiological data from the home care setting is lacking; nurses do not have prescribing authority for vaccines; user and family education is not made available; home care-specific guidance on infection control and prevention is absent and the home care setting is underprepared to care for acutely ill patients. POLICY ALTERNATIVES: Nurses need to be included in policy decision and authorized to adopt more responsibility in home care than currently possible. Home care-specific policies and guidance are needed and integration with primary care should be sought. DISCUSSION: Changes to current policy in the identified areas could make the health system more resilient to future crisis. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Older persons and those with pre-existing conditions are at the highest risk for severe illness and death from COVID-19 and most of them receive care in their own homes in Germany. Improving health policy governing home care, improving the availability of valid data and evidence, and improving the delivery of home care during the pandemic will contribute to better outcomes.

Ventricular arrhythmia burden in patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillator and remote patient monitoring during different time intervals of the COVID-19 pandemic.

PURPOSE: The current study investigated whether the changes in patient care in times of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially the reduction of in-person visits, would result in a deterioration of the arrhythmic and clinical condition of patients with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) and remote patient monitoring. METHODS: Data were obtained from a local ICD registry. 140 patients who received ICD implantation at our department and had remote patient monitoring were included. The number of patients with ventricular arrhythmias, appropriate ICD therapy, the number of visits to our outpatient clinic and hospitalization due to acute coronary syndrome, stroke or heart failure were compared during three time intervals of the COVID-19 pandemic (first (LD1) and second (LD2) national lockdown in Germany and the time after the first lockdown (postLD1)) and a time interval 1 year before the pandemic began (preCOV). Each time interval was 49 days long. RESULTS: Patients had significantly fewer visits to our outpatient clinic during LD1 (n = 13), postLD1 (n = 22) and LD2 (n = 23) compared to the time interval before the pandemic (n = 43, each p ≤ 0.05). The number of patients with sustained ventricular arrhythmias, appropriate ICD therapy and clinical events showed no significant difference during the time intervals of the COVID-19 pandemic and the time interval 1 year prior. CONCLUSIONS: The lockdown measures necessary to reduce the risk of infection during the COVID-19 pandemic, led to a reduction of in-person patient visits, but did not result in a deterioration of the arrhythmic and clinical condition of ICD patients with remote patient monitoring.

Impact of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on physical activity of patients with cardiac implantable electronic devices-A remote monitoring study.

OBJECTIVES: The study aims to investigate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on physical activity and frequency of implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) therapies of patients with cardiac implantable electronic devices. METHODS AND RESULTS: Physical activity, heart rate and ICD-therapies were assessed via routine remote monitoring over two years. We focussed on a 338-day period during COVID-19 pandemic that was divided in 6 time-intervals defined by public health interventions and compared to the previous regular year. Paired nonparametric longitudinal analysis was performed to detect differences between time-intervals. To model effects of age, sex and time we applied a nonparametric ANOVA-type-statistic. 147 patients with cardiac implantable electronic devices were analysed. Longitudinal analysis of physical activity in 2019 and 2020 showed a specific weekly and seasonal pattern. Physical activity was reduced during the pandemic (mean daily physical activity 2019: 12.4% vs. 2020: 11.5%; p<0.0001) with the strongest reductions (fold changes 0.885/0.889, p<0.0001/p<0.0001) during the two lockdown-periods. In older patients (>70 years), physical activity was decreased in every time-interval of the year 2020. In time-intervals of eased restrictions, physical activity of younger patients (≤70 years) was not different compared to 2019. No variation in mean heart rate, arrhythmia-burden and count of ICD-therapies was found. CONCLUSION: Physical activity shows fluctuations dependent on days of the week and time of the year. During the pandemic, physical activity was reduced in patients with cardiac implantable electronic devices with the strongest reductions during lockdown-periods. Younger patients resumed former levels of physical activity in times of eased restrictions while older patients remained less active. Thus, activation of the elderly population is important to prevent long-term health impairments due to the pandemic.

Point-of-care lung ultrasound in COVID-19 patients: inter- and intra-observer agreement in a prospective observational study.

With an urgent need for bedside imaging of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), this study's main goal was to assess inter- and intraobserver agreement in lung ultrasound (LUS) of COVID-19 patients. In this single-center study we prospectively acquired and evaluated 100 recorded ten-second cine-loops in confirmed COVID-19 intensive care unit (ICU) patients. All loops were rated by ten observers with different subspeciality backgrounds for four times by each observer (400 loops overall) in a random sequence using a web-based rating tool. We analyzed inter- and intraobserver variability for specific pathologies and a semiquantitative LUS score. Interobserver agreement for both, identification of specific pathologies and assignment of LUS scores was fair to moderate (e.g., LUS score 1 Fleiss' κ = 0.27; subpleural consolidations Fleiss' κ = 0.59). Intraobserver agreement was mostly moderate to substantial with generally higher agreement for more distinct findings (e.g., lowest LUS score 0 vs. highest LUS score 3 (median Fleiss' κ = 0.71 vs. 0.79) or air bronchograms (median Fleiss' κ = 0.72)). Intraobserver consistency was relatively low for intermediate LUS scores (e.g. LUS Score 1 median Fleiss' κ = 0.52). We therefore conclude that more distinct LUS findings (e.g., air bronchograms, subpleural consolidations) may be more suitable for disease monitoring, especially with more than one investigator and that training material used for LUS in point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) should pay refined attention to areas such as B-line quantification and differentiation of intermediate LUS scores.

[Data monitoring committees-state of the art and perspectives for the future]. / Das Data Monitoring Committee ­ State of the Art und Perspektiven für die Zukunft.

BACKGROUND: The classic randomized and controlled clinical trial is facing new challenges with complex study designs and disease interception concepts. For this reason, data monitoring committees (DMCs) can take on a central function if professionally integrated into the methodical procedure of clinical trials. On this basis, the responsible competent authority and the responsible ethics committee have to verify the substantial charter document in the implicit/explicit approval procedure reflecting the working process of the independent committee. OBJECTIVES: The frequencies and conditions under which DMCs are used in clinical trials was investigated. METHODS: The database of the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) was the basis for statistical analysis concerning the frequency of implementation of data monitoring committees with different criteria over an observation period of more than 15 years. RESULTS: In total, 4152 DMCs have been used in 14,135 clinical trials with drugs. The independent expert committee was mostly integrated by commercial sponsors in phase III of the clinical development. The ethics committees were involved with different absolute frequencies. DISCUSSION: Sponsors demonstrate an increasing willingness to integrate DMCs in the methodical conduct of clinical trials especially in the case of new study designs. DMCs could be an important scientific aid in order to assess the implications of coronavirus SARS-CoV­2 on clinical trials.