Development and examination of a rubric for evaluating point-of-care medical applications for mobile devices.

The rapid development and updates of mobile medical resource applications (apps) highlight the need for an evaluation tool to assess the content of these resources. The purpose of the study was to develop and test a new evaluation rubric for medical resource apps. The evaluation rubric was designed using existing literature and through a collaborative effort between a hospital and an academic librarian. Testing found scores ranging from 23% to 88% for the apps. The evaluation rubric proved able to distinguish levels of quality within each content component of the apps, demonstrating potential for standardization of medical resource app evaluations.

Emergency department use: is frequent use associated with a lack of primary care provider?

OBJECTIVE: To determine if having a primary care provider is an important factor in frequency of emergency department (ED) use. DESIGN: Analysis of a central computerized health network database. SETTING: Three EDs in southern New Brunswick. PARTICIPANTS: All ED visits during 1 calendar year to an urban regional hospital (URH), an urban urgent care centre (UCC), and a rural community hospital (RCH) were captured. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Patients with and without listed primary care providers were compared in terms of number of visits to the ED. A logistic regression analysis was used to determine factors predictive of frequent attendance. RESULTS: In total, 48 505, 41 004, and 27 900 visits were made to the URH, UCC, and RCH, respectively, in 2009. The proportion of patients with listed primary care providers was 36.6% for the URH, 37.1% for the UCC, and 89.4% for the RCH. Among ED patients at all sites, frequent attenders (4 or more visits to an ED in 1 year) were significantly more likely (59.6% vs 45.1%, P < .001) to have listed primary care providers. Other factors that predicted frequent use included attendance at a rural ED, female sex, and older age. CONCLUSION: This study characterizes attendance rates for 3 EDs in southern New Brunswick. Our findings highlight interesting differences between urban and rural ED populations, and suggest that frequent use of the ED might not be related to lack of a listed primary care provider.

Chronic oral methylphenidate induces post-treatment impairment in recognition and spatial memory in adult rats.

Recent pre-clinical research has indicated that chronic treatment with methylphenidate (Ritalin) in young animals can result in lasting and potentially detrimental alterations in brain function that can persist into adulthood. Chronic methylphenidate-induced neuronal alterations may result in behavior and cognitive deficits that include increases in behavioral responses and impairment in recognition memory. This study compared the cognitive consequences following chronic treatment with two doses (5 and 10 mg/kg) of methylphenidate on recognition and spatial memory in adult male Long-Evans rats using an established oral dosing procedure. The animals were then tested in the Object Recognition test at 14 days post treatment and the Object Placement test at 21 days post treatment. The results indicate that repeated exposure to oral methylphenidate impaired the performance of rats in these tests. The current findings add to recent research demonstrating negative consequences in rats pre-treated with methylphenidate, and extend previous findings to include deficits in spatial recognition memory.

Effect of a point-of-care ultrasound protocol on the diagnostic performance of medical learners during simulated cardiorespiratory scenarios.

BACKGROUND: Goal-directed point-of-care ultrasound (PoCUS) protocols have been shown to improve the diagnostic accuracy of the initial clinical assessment of the critically ill patient. The diagnostic impact of the Abdominal and Cardiac Evaluation with Sonography in Shock (ACES) protocol was assessed in simulated emergency medical scenarios. METHODS: Following a focused PoCUS training program, the diagnostic accuracy, confidence, and precision of 12 medical learners participating in standardized scenarios were tested using high-fidelity clinical and ultrasound simulators. Participants were assessed during 72 simulated cardiorespiratory scenarios. Differential diagnoses were collected from participants before and after PoCUS in each scenario, and confidence surveys were completed. Data were analysed using R software. RESULTS: Prior to PoCUS, 45 (62.5%) correct primary diagnoses were made compared with 64 (88.9%) following PoCUS (χ2=14, 1df, p=0.0002). PoCUS was also shown to increase participants' confidence in their diagnoses. The mean confidence in diagnosis score pre-PoCUS was 52.2 (SD=14.7), whereas post-PoCUS it was 81.7 (SD=9.5). The estimated difference in means (-28.36) was significant (t=-7.71, p<0.0001). Using PoCUS, participants were further able to narrow their differential diagnoses. The median number of diagnoses for each patient pre-PoCUS was 3.5 (interquartile range [IQR]=3.8, 3.0) with a median of 2.3 (IQR=2.9,1.5) diagnoses post-PoCUS. The difference was significant (W=0, p<0.001). CONCLUSION: This pilot study suggests that, in medical learners newly competent in PoCUS, the addition of an ACES PoCUS protocol to standard clinical assessment improves diagnostic accuracy, confidence, and precision in simulated cardiorespiratory scenarios. This is consistent with clinical studies and supports the use of ultrasound during medical simulation.

Behavioral reactivity to a noradrenergic challenge after chronic oral methylphenidate (ritalin) in rats.

Methylphenidate (Ritalin) is routinely used for the treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It is a psychomotor stimulant with pharmacodynamics similar to those established for cocaine and amphetamine with primary activation of the noradrenergic and dopaminergic systems. Long-term exposure to psychostimulants including methylphenidate (MPD) is believed to result in enduring functional changes along both these pathways and various behaviors mediated by these systems may be affected. In the present experiment, the effects of intermittent oral administration of methylphenidate (10 mg/kg) to rats over a 4-week period were subsequently (after a drug washout interval) assessed in three animal models sensitive to noradrenergic manipulation: the elevated plus-maze, predator odor avoidance, and social interaction tests. The behaviors of methylphenidate-experienced animals were compared with untreated controls. Thirty minutes prior to testing, half the animals with each of these histories received an injection of yohimbine hydrochloride (2.0 mg/kg), an alpha2-adrenoreceptor blocker intended to evoke noradrenergic system activation, while the remainder received a saline injection. Yohimbine was expected to reduce both exploration of novel stimuli and interaction with conspecifics, and it was predicted that methylphenidate would potentiate these effects. Relative to saline-tested controls, rats that received both the methylphenidate treatment and the yohimbine challenge exhibited the least exploration in the predator odor test and the lowest duration of interaction with an unfamiliar conspecific partner in the social interaction test. The behavior patterns observed in this group of rats suggest heightened emotionality and defensiveness that are typically seen when rats are administered drugs known to be anxiogenic in human subjects. In the plus-maze, exploratory locomotor activities remained unaltered by either drug while yohimbine decreased risk-assessment behaviors, an effect that remained uninfluenced by methylphenidate pretreatment.

Can medical learners achieve point-of-care ultrasound competency using a high-fidelity ultrasound simulator?: a pilot study.

BACKGROUND: Point-of-care ultrasound (PoCUS) is currently not a universal component of curricula for medical undergraduate and postgraduate training. We designed and assessed a simulation-based PoCUS training program for medical learners, incorporating image acquisition and image interpretation for simulated emergency medical pathologies. We wished to see if learners could achieve competency in simulated ultrasound following focused training in a PoCUS protocol. METHODS: Twelve learners (clerks and residents) received standardized training consisting of online preparation materials, didactic teaching, and an interactive hands-on workshop using a high-fidelity ultrasound simulator (CAE Vimedix). We used the Abdominal and Cardiothoracic Evaluation by Sonography (ACES) protocol as the curriculum for PoCUS training. Participants were assessed during 72 simulated emergency cardiorespiratory scenarios. Their ability to complete an ACES scan independently was assessed. Data was analyzed using R software. RESULTS: Participants independently generated 574 (99.7%) of the 576 expected ultrasound windows during the 72 simulated scenarios and correctly interpreted 67 (93%) of the 72 goal-directed PoCUS scans. CONCLUSIONS: Following a focused training process using medical simulation, medical learners demonstrated an ability to achieve a degree of competency to both acquire and correctly interpret cardiorespiratory PoCUS findings using a high-fidelity ultrasound simulator.

Chronic oral methylphenidate administration to periadolescent rats yields prolonged impairment of memory for objects.

Methylphenidate (MPD) is widely prescribed for the treatment of attention deficit disorders in children and has generally been thought to be free of significant side effects when administered at recommended therapeutic doses. However, recent behavioral research with laboratory rodents has indicated that, like other psychostimulants with which it shares neurotransmitter-modulating properties, chronically administered MPD can bring about lasting and potentially detrimental alterations in brain function. Some of these may involve changes in the neuromodulatory input from noradrenergic and dopaminergic systems that project to the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, regions with significant roles in several cognitive functions, including those critical to memory formation. To investigate the possibility of cognitive impairment, the effects of a regimen of chronic MPD on the performance of an object recognition task known to rely on the integrity of systems involved in rodent memory was assessed. The drug, at doses of 2, 3 or 5mg/kg, was delivered twice daily to periadolescent rats via an oral administration technique on either 11 or 21 treatment days. Subsequent to this period, the animals were subjected to an object recognition test at 14, 28, and 42 days after their last MPD treatment. In each of these tests, exploration time for two objects, one novel and one previously encountered (3h earlier), was assessed. Longer exploration of the novel object was considered evidence of retained memory for the familiar object. It was found that rats exposed to 3 or 5mg/kg (b.i.d.) on 21 occasions exhibited no significant preference for exploration of the novel object at any of the three post-treatment intervals. This finding was interpreted as evidence of a persisting MPD-induced impairment of recognition memory in these animals.