Impact of emergency physician-provided patient education about alternative care venues.

OBJECTIVES: Interventions that focus on educating patients appear to be the most effective in directing healthcare utilization to more appropriate venues. We sought to evaluate the effects of mailed information and a brief scripted educational phone call from an emergency physician (EP) on subsequent emergency department (ED) utilization by low-risk adults with a recent treat-and-release ED visit. STUDY DESIGN: Patients were randomized into 3 groups for post-ED follow-up: EP phone call with mailed information, mailed information only, and no educational intervention. Each intervention group was compared with a set of matched controls. METHODS: We undertook this study in 6 EDs within an integrated healthcare delivery system. Overall, 9093 patients were identified; the final groups were the phone group (n = 609), mail group (n = 771), and matched control groups for each (n = 1827 and n = 1542, respectively). Analysis was stratified by age (<65 and ≥65 years). Patients were educated about available venues of care delivery for their future medical needs. The primary outcome was the rate of 6-month ED utilization after the intervention compared with the 6-month utilization rate preceding the intervention. RESULTS: Compared with matched controls, subsequent ED utilization decreased by 22% for patients 65 years or older in the phone group (P = .04) and by 27% for patients younger than 65 years in the mail group (P = .03). CONCLUSIONS: ED utilization subsequent to a low-acuity ED visit decreased after a brief post-ED education intervention by an EP explaining alternative venues of care for future medical needs. Response to the method of communication (phone vs mail) varied significantly by patient age.

The Impact of Acute Organ Dysfunction on Long-Term Survival in Sepsis.

OBJECTIVES: To estimate the impact of each of six types of acute organ dysfunction (hepatic, renal, coagulation, neurologic, cardiac, and respiratory) on long-term mortality after surviving sepsis hospitalization. DESIGN: Multicenter, retrospective study. SETTINGS: Twenty-one hospitals within an integrated healthcare delivery system in Northern California. PATIENTS: Thirty thousand one hundred sixty-three sepsis patients admitted through the emergency department between 2010 and 2013, with mortality follow-up through April 2015. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Acute organ dysfunction was quantified using modified Sequential Organ Failure Assessment scores. The main outcome was long-term mortality among sepsis patients who survived hospitalization. The estimates of the impact of each type of acute organ dysfunction on long-term mortality were based on adjusted Cox proportional hazards models. Sensitivity analyses were conducted based on propensity score-matching and adjusted logistic regression. Hospital mortality was 9.4% and mortality was 31.7% at 1 year. Median follow-up time among sepsis survivors was 797 days (interquartile range: 384-1,219 d). Acute neurologic (odds ratio, 1.86; p < 0.001), respiratory (odds ratio, 1.43; p < 0.001), and cardiac (odds ratio, 1.31; p < 0.001) dysfunction were most strongly associated with short-term hospital mortality, compared with sepsis patients without these organ dysfunctions. Evaluating only patients surviving their sepsis hospitalization, acute neurologic dysfunction was also most strongly associated with long-term mortality (odds ratio, 1.52; p < 0.001) corresponding to a marginal increase in predicted 1-year mortality of 6.0% for the presence of any neurologic dysfunction (p < 0.001). Liver dysfunction was also associated with long-term mortality in all models, whereas the association for other organ dysfunction subtypes was inconsistent between models. CONCLUSIONS: Acute sepsis-related neurologic dysfunction was the organ dysfunction most strongly associated with short- and long-term mortality and represents a key mediator of long-term adverse outcomes following sepsis.