Regionalization of Congenital Heart Surgery in the United States.

The objective of this study is to simulate regionalization of congenital heart surgery (CHS) in the United States and assess the impact of such a system on travel distance and mortality. Patients ≤18 years of age who underwent CHS were identified in 2012 State Inpatient Databases. Operations were stratified by the Risk Adjustment for Congenital Heart Surgery, version 1 (RACHS-1) method, with high risk defined as RACHS-1 levels 4-6. Regionalization was simulated by progressive closure of hospitals, beginning with the lowest volume hospital. Patients were moved to the next closest hospital. Analyses were conducted (1) maintaining original hospital mortality rates and (2) estimating mortality rates based on predicted surgical volumes after absorbing moved patients. One hundred fifty-three hospitals from 36 states performed 1 or more operation (19,064 operations). With regionalization wherein, all hospitals performed >310 operations, 37 hospitals remained, from 12.5% to 17.4% fewer deaths occurred (83-116/666), and median patient travel distance increased from 38.5 to 69.6 miles (P < 0.01). When only high-risk operations were regionalized, 3.9-5.9% fewer deaths occurred (26-39/666), and the overall mortality rate did not change significantly. Regionalization of CHS in the United States to higher volume centers may reduce mortality with minimal increase in patient travel distance. Much of the mortality reduction may be missed if solely high-risk patients are regionalized.

Type A Aortic Dissection in the United Kingdom: The Untold Facts.

There is a lack of evidence on multiple levels for appropriate recognition, management, and outcome results in Type A aortic dissection management in the United Kingdom. A huge amount of retrospective data exists in the literature which provides nonmeaningful prospect to a service that meets the current era. Electronic searches were performed on PubMed and Cochrane databases with no limits placed on dates. Search terms were charted to MeSH terms and combined using Boolean operations, and also used as key words. Papers were selected on the basis of title and abstract. The reference lists of selected papers were reviewed to identify any relevant papers that might be suitable for inclusion in the study. Papers were selected based on providing primary end points of death, rupture, or dissection and/or information regarding aortic aneurysm growth. Papers were not excluded based on patient population age. We demonstrated the lack of evidence for quality outcomes in type A aortic dissection in the United Kingdom. This highlighted the unwarranted variation seen in this entity and the caveats needed to improve structuring of type A aortic dissection from early identification in emergency departments to arrival at destination site for optimum intervention. Emergency services should be restructured to meet the immediate affirmation of diagnosis with gold standard imaging modality available. Management of this dire disease should be instituted at local hospitals prior to transportation and results should be audited regularly to improve quality outcomes. Attempts should be made to create local area networks to improve the efficiencies and outcomes of the service and transfer to centers with concentration of expertise. Recognition of regional networks by the UK Government Care Quality Commission should in part based on cumulative evidence sought after from virtual multidisciplinary teams. Unwarranted variation is an avenue that requires to be addressed to rise with service provision that meets our patients aspiration and be of current evidence in the 21st era.

Expert opinion on the creating and operating of the regional Pulmonary Embolism Response Teams (PERT). Polish PERT Initiative.

Pulmonary Embolism Response Team (PERT) is a multidisciplinary team established to stratify risk and choose optimal treatment in patients with acute pulmonary embolism (PE). Established for the first time at Massachusetts General Hospital in 2013, PERT is based on a concept combining a Rapid Response Team and a Heart Team. The growing role of PERTs in making individual therapeutic decisions is identified, especially in hemodynamically unstable patients with contraindications to thrombolysis or with co-morbidities, as well as in patients with intermediate-high risk in whom a therapeutic decision may be difficult. The purpose of this document is to define the standards of PERT under Polish conditions, based on the experience of teams already operating in Poland, which formed an agreement called the Polish PERT Initiative. The goals of Polish PERT Initiative are: improving the treatment of patients with PE at local, regional and national levels, gathering, assessing and sharing data on the effectiveness of PE treatment (including various types of catheter-directed therapy), education on optimal treatment of PE, creating expert documents and supporting scientific research, as well as cooperation with other communities and scientific societies.

Cluster-Randomized Trial to Evaluate a Centralized Clinical Pharmacy Service in Private Family Medicine Offices.

BACKGROUND: The use of clinical pharmacists in primary care has improved the control of several chronic cardiovascular conditions. However, many private physician practices lack the resources to implement team-based care with pharmacists. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether a centralized, remote, clinical pharmacy service could improve guideline adherence and secondary measures of cardiovascular risk in primary care offices in rural and small communities. METHODS AND RESULTS: This study was a prospective trial in 12 family medicine offices cluster randomized to either the intervention or usual care. The intervention was delivered for 12 months, and subjects had research visits at baseline and 12 months. The primary outcome was adherence to guidelines, and secondary outcomes included changes in key cardiovascular risk factors and preventative health measures. We enrolled 302 subjects. There was no improvement in the Guideline Advantage score from baseline to 12 months in the control group (64.7% versus 63.1%, respectively; P=0.21). There was a statistically significant improvement in the intervention group from 63.3% at baseline to 67.8% at 12 months (P=0.02). The estimated benefit of the intervention was 5.0%±2.4% (95% confidence interval=-0.5% to 10.4%; P=0.07). Several criteria were significantly better for intervention subjects, including appropriate statin therapy (P<0.001), body mass index, screening (P<0.001), and alcohol screening (P<0.001). Only 13.7% of subjects with diabetes mellitus had hemoglobin A1c at goal at baseline, and this increased to 30.8% and 21.0% in the intervention and control group, respectively, at 12 months (P=0.10). CONCLUSIONS: The centralized, remote pharmacist intervention was successfully implemented. The improvements in outcomes were modest, in part because of higher than expected baseline guideline adherence. Future studies of this model should focus on patients with uncontrolled conditions at high risk for cardiovascular events. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT 01983813.

Positive Impact of an Aortic Center Designation.

BACKGROUND: In January 2015, we created a multidisciplinary Aortic Center with the collaboration of Vascular Surgery, Cardiac Surgery, Interventional Radiology, Anesthesia and Hospital Administration. We report the initial success of creating a Comprehensive Aortic Center. METHODS: All aortic procedures performed from January 1, 2015 until December 31, 2016 were entered into a prospectively collected database and compared with available data for 2014. Primary outcomes included the number of all aortic related procedures, transfer acceptance rate, transfer time, and proportion of elective/emergent referrals. RESULTS: The Aortic Center included 5 vascular surgeons, 2 cardiac surgeons, and 2 interventional radiologists. Workflow processes were implemented to streamline patient transfers as well as physician and operating room notification. Total aortic volume increased significantly from 162 to 261 patients. This reflected an overall 59% (P = 0.0167) increase in all aorta-related procedures. We had a 65% overall increase in transfer requests with 156% increase in acceptance of referrals and 136% drop in transfer denials (P < 0.0001). Emergent abdominal aortic cases accounted for 17% (n = 45) of our total aortic volume in 2015. The average transfer time from request to arrival decreased from 515 to 352 min, although this change was not statistically significant. We did see a significant increase in the use of air-transfers for aortic patients (P = 0.0041). Factorial analysis showed that time for transfer was affected only by air-transfer use, regardless of the year the patient was transferred. Transfer volume and volume of aortic related procedures remained stable in 2016. CONCLUSIONS: Designation as a comprehensive Aortic Center with implementation of strategic workflow systems and a culture of "no refusal of transfers" resulted in a significant increase in aortic volume for both emergent and elective aortic cases. Case volumes increased for all specialties involved in the center. Improvements in transfer center and emergency medical services communication demonstrated a trend toward more efficient transfer times. These increases and improvements were sustainable for 2 years after this designation.

Research on the functions of developing telemedicine service and establishing regional medical conjoined system.

This article introduces the technical requirements, standards, operation models, the domestic development status and problems of developing telemedicine technology, the necessity of establishing regional medical system, and the conception of cloud model, respectively. Based on the analysis of cardiovascular treatment cases in our hospital, this article suggests that developing telemedicine service and establishing regional medical conjoint system is the necessary direction of the domestic medical development. As with all kinds of difficulties, one can learn from the success cases and formulate practical and feasible measures according to the practical reality of different areas in China.

Post-resuscitation care following out-of-hospital and in-hospital cardiac arrest.

Cardiac arrest is a leading cause of death in developed countries. Although a majority of cardiac arrest patients die during the acute event, a substantial proportion of cardiac arrest deaths occur in patients following successful resuscitation and can be attributed to the development of post-cardiac arrest syndrome. There is growing recognition that integrated post-resuscitation care, which encompasses targeted temperature management (TTM), early coronary angiography and comprehensive critical care, can improve patient outcomes. TTM has been shown to improve survival and neurological outcome in patients who remain comatose especially following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest due to ventricular arrhythmias. Early coronary angiography and revascularisation if needed may also be beneficial during the post-resuscitation phase, based on data from observational studies. In addition, resuscitated patients usually require intensive care, which includes mechanical ventilator, haemodynamic support and close monitoring of blood gases, glucose, electrolytes, seizures and other disease-specific intervention. Efforts should be taken to avoid premature withdrawal of life-supporting treatment, especially in patients treated with TTM. Given that resources and personnel needed to provide high-quality post-resuscitation care may not exist at all hospitals, professional societies have recommended regionalisation of post-resuscitation care in specialised 'cardiac arrest centres' as a strategy to improve cardiac arrest outcomes. Finally, evidence for post-resuscitation care following in-hospital cardiac arrest is largely extrapolated from studies in patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Future studies need to examine the effectiveness of different post-resuscitation strategies, such as TTM, in patients with in-hospital cardiac arrest.

Delivery system characteristics and their association with quality and costs of care: implications for accountable care organizations.

BACKGROUND: Implementation of accountable care organizations (ACOs) is currently underway, but there is limited empirical evidence on the merits of the ACO model. PURPOSE: The aim was to study the associations between delivery system characteristics and ACO competencies, including centralization strategies to manage organizations, hospital integration with physicians and outpatient facilities, health information technology, infrastructure to monitor community health and report quality, and risk-adjusted 30-day all-cause mortality and case-mixed-adjusted inpatient costs for the Medicare population. METHODOLOGY: Panel data (2006-2009) were assembled from Florida and multiple sources: inpatient hospital discharge, vital statistics, the American Hospital Association, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, and other databases. We applied a panel study design, controlling for hospital and market characteristics. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Hospitals that were in centralized health systems or became more centralized over the study period had significantly larger reductions in mortality compared with hospitals that remained freestanding. Surprisingly, tightly integrated hospital-physician arrangements were associated with increased mortality; as such, hospitals may wish to proceed cautiously when developing specific types of alignment with local physician organizations. We observed no statistically significant differences in the growth rate of costs across hospitals in any of the health systems studied relative to freestanding hospitals. Although we observed quality improvement in some organizational types, these outcome improvements were not coupled with the additional desired objective of lower cost growth. This implies that additional changes not present during our study period, potentially changes in provider payment approaches, are essential for achieving the ACO objectives of higher quality of care at lower costs. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Provider organizations implementing ACOs should consider centralizing service delivery as a viable strategy to improve quality of care, although the strategy did not result in lower cost growth.

[Concept of an interdisciplinary emergency department at the Schwarzwald-Baar Hospital]. / Konzept einer interdisziplinären Notaufnahmeklinik am Schwarzwald-Baar Klinikum.

BACKGROUND: Numerous hospitals were combined years ago into a new Central Hospital for cost reasons in the Schwarzwald-Baar region. This also suggested the idea of a large central emergency department. The concept of a central emergency department is an organizational challenge, since they are directly engaged in the organizational structure of all medical departments that are involved in emergency treatment. Such a concept can only be enforced if it is supported by hospital management and all parties are willing to accept interdisciplinary and interprofessional work. OBJECTIVE: In this paper, the concept of a central emergency department in a tertiary care hospital which was rebuilt as an organizationally independent unit is described. Collaborations with various departments, emergency services, and local physicians are highlighted. The processes of a central emergency department with an integrated admission department and personnel structures are described. CONCLUSION: The analysis of the concept after almost a year has shown that the integration into the clinic has been successful, the central emergency department has proven itself as a central hub and has been accepted as a unit within the hospital.

[Organizational forms of emergency medicine from the viewpoint of hospital management. Discipline-specific or interdisciplinary?]. / Organisationsformen der Notfallmedizin aus Sicht des Krankenhausmanagement. Fachspezifisch oder interdisziplinär?

Almost 16 million Germans are treated annually in an emergency room (ER). Most patients are seen in a specialty ER and only 10-20% of all hospitals have a centralized ER facility. Clinical emergency medicine is currently not adequately reimbursed, but represents a major patient entry point for most hospitals. It remains unclear whether the implementation of specialized ER physicians is more cost-effective than centralized specialization. However, it appears reasonable to centralize all ER resources, to optimize the workflow using electronic patient charts and order entry sets and to incorporate the general practitioner into the treatment of simple medical problems.

Phase 1: identifying critical success factors.

Health care processes and services of the "Policlinico" are analyzed with respect to their performance. Possible improvement is identified in reducing the process overall time at the process-service interface.

Integrating the healthcare supply chain.

Today's integrated delivery systems (IDSs) require efficient supply chain processes to speed products to users at the lowest possible cost. Most excess costs within the supply chain are a result of inefficient and redundant processes involved in the transport and delivery of supplies from suppliers to healthcare providers. By integrating and assuming control of these supply chain processes, improving supply chain management practices, and organizing and implementing a disciplined redesign plan, IDSs can achieve substantial savings and better focus their organizations on their core patient care mission.