Stigmatizing Language, Patient Demographics, and Errors in the Diagnostic Process.

This cohort study assesses the association between stigmatizing language, demographic characteristics, and errors in the diagnostic process among hospitalized adults.

Timing of antibiotic treatment identifies distinct clinical presentations among patients presenting with suspected septic shock.

Objective: Recent clinical guidelines for sepsis management emphasize immediate antibiotic initiation for suspected septic shock. Though hypotension is a high-risk marker of sepsis severity, prior studies have not considered the precise timing of hypotension in relation to antibiotic initiation and how clinical characteristics and outcomes may differ. Our objective was to evaluate antibiotic initiation in relation to hypotension to characterize differences in sepsis presentation and outcomes in patients with suspected septic shock. Methods: Adults presenting to the emergency department (ED) June 2012-December 2018 diagnosed with sepsis (Sepsis-III electronic health record [EHR] criteria) and hypotension (non-resolving for ≥30 min, systolic blood pressure <90 mmHg) within 24 h. We categorized patients who received antibiotics before hypotension ("early"), 0-60 min after ("immediate"), and >60 min after ("late") treatment. Results: Among 2219 patients, 55% received early treatment, 13% immediate, and 32% late. The late subgroup often presented to the ED with hypotension (median 0 min) but received antibiotics a median of 191 min post-ED presentation. Clinical characteristics notable for this subgroup included higher prevalence of heart failure and liver disease (p < 0.05) and later onset of systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) criteria compared to early/immediate treatment subgroups (median 87 vs. 35 vs. 20 min, p < 0.0001). After adjustment, there was no difference in clinical outcomes among treatment subgroups. Conclusions: There was significant heterogeneity in presentation and timing of antibiotic initiation for suspected septic shock. Patients with later treatment commonly had hypotension on presentation, had more hypotension-associated comorbidities, and developed overt markers of infection (eg, SIRS) later. While these factors likely contribute to delays in clinician recognition of suspected septic shock, it may not impact sepsis outcomes.

Achieving diagnostic excellence through prevention and teamwork (ADEPT) study protocol: A multicenter, prospective quality and safety program to improve diagnostic processes in medical inpatients.

BACKGROUND: Few hospitals have built surveillance for diagnostic errors into usual care or used comparative quantitative and qualitative data to understand their diagnostic processes and implement interventions designed to reduce these errors. OBJECTIVES: To build surveillance for diagnostic errors into usual care, benchmark diagnostic performance across sites, pilot test interventions, and evaluate the program's impact on diagnostic error rates. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Achieving diagnostic excellence through prevention and teamwork (ADEPT) is a multicenter, real-world quality and safety program utilizing interrupted time-series techniques to evaluate outcomes. Study subjects will be a randomly sampled population of medical patients hospitalized at 16 US hospitals who died, were transferred to intensive care, or had a rapid response during the hospitalization. Surveillance for diagnostic errors will occur on 10 events per month per site using a previously established two-person adjudication process. Concurrent reviews of patients who had a qualifying event in the previous week will allow for surveys of clinicians to better understand contributors to diagnostic error, or conversely, examples of diagnostic excellence, which cannot be gleaned from medical record review alone. With guidance from national experts in quality and safety, sites will report and benchmark diagnostic error rates, share lessons regarding underlying causes, and design, implement, and pilot test interventions using both Safety I and Safety II approaches aimed at patients, providers, and health systems. Safety II approaches will focus on cases where diagnostic error did not occur, applying theories of how people and systems are able to succeed under varying conditions. The primary outcome will be the number of diagnostic errors per patient, using segmented multivariable regression to evaluate change in y-intercept and change in slope after initiation of the program. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The study has been approved by the University of California, San Francisco Institutional Review Board (IRB), which is serving as the single IRB. Intervention toolkits and study findings will be disseminated through partners including Vizient, The Joint Commission, and Press-Ganey, and through national meetings, scientific journals, and publications aimed at the general public.

Discharge in the a.m.: A randomized controlled trial of physician rounding styles to improve hospital throughput and length of stay.

BACKGROUND: To relieve hospital capacity strain, hospitals often encourage clinicians to prioritize early morning discharges which may have unintended consequences. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to test the effects of hospitalist physicians prioritizing discharging patients first compared to usual rounding style. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Prospective, multi-center randomized controlled trial. Three large academic hospitals. Participants were Hospital Medicine attending-level physicians and patients the physicians cared for during the study who were at least 18 years of age, admitted to a Medicine service, and assigned by standard practice to a hospitalist team. INTERVENTION: Physicians were randomized to: (1) prioritizing discharging patients first as care allowed or (2) usual practice. MAIN OUTCOME AND MEASURES: Main outcome measure was discharge order time. Secondary outcomes were actual discharge time, length of stay (LOS), and order times for procedures, consults, and imaging. RESULTS: From February 9, 2021, to July 31, 2021, 4437 patients were discharged by 59 physicians randomized to prioritize discharging patients first or round per usual practice. In primary adjusted analyses (intention-to-treat), findings showed no significant difference for discharge order time (13:03 ± 2 h:31 min vs. 13:11 ± 2 h:33 min, p = .11) or discharge time (15:22 ± 2 h:50 min vs. 15:21 ± 2 h:50 min, p = .45), for physicians randomized to prioritize discharging patients first compared to physicians using usual rounding style, respectively, and there was no significant change in LOS or on order times of other physician orders. CONCLUSIONS: Prioritizing discharging patients first did not result in significantly earlier discharges or reduced LOS.

Capturing what matters: A retrospective observational study of advance care planning documentation at an academic medical center during the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Advance care planning allows patients to share their preferences for medical care with the aim of ensuring goal-concordant care in times of serious illness. The morbidity and mortality of the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the importance and public visibility of advance care planning. However, little is known about the frequency and quality of advance care planning documentation during the pandemic. AIM: This study examined the frequency, quality, and predictors of advance care planning documentation among hospitalized medical patients with and without COVID-19. DESIGN: This retrospective cohort analysis used multivariate logistic regression to identify factors associated with advance care planning documentation. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: This study included all adult patients tested for COVID-19 and admitted to a tertiary medical center in San Francisco, CA during March 2020. RESULTS: Among 262 patients, 31 (11.8%) tested positive and 231 (88.2%) tested negative for SARS-CoV-2. The rate of advance care planning documentation was 38.7% in patients with COVID-19 and 46.8% in patients without COVID-19 (p = 0.45). Documentation consistently addressed code status (100% and 94.4% for COVID-positive and COVID-negative, respectively), but less often named a surrogate decision maker, discussed prognosis, or elaborated on other wishes for care. Palliative care consultation was associated with increased advance care planning documentation (OR: 6.93, p = 0.004). CONCLUSION: This study found low rates of advance care planning documentation for patients both with and without COVID-19 during an evolving global pandemic. Advance care planning documentation was associated with palliative care consultation, highlighting the importance of such consultation to ensure timely, patient-centered advance care planning.

Ask About What Matters: An Intervention to Improve Accessible Advance Care Planning Documentation.

CONTEXT: Advance care planning (ACP) informs future medical decision-making, especially for patients with advanced age or serious illness. For clinicians to act on these preferences, or continue the ACP conversation as illness progresses, documentation of ACP discussions must be readily accessible within the electronic health record (EHR). OBJECTIVES: Develop an intervention to improve accessible ACP documentation for hospitalized patients and assess its impact on viewing and documentation of ACP conversations within a specific EHR location. METHODS: Adult patients age 75 or older or with serious illness discharged during a two-year period were included. The EHR's ACP Navigator was targeted as the intended location for documenting ACP-related activities. We implemented a hospital-wide, multipronged intervention that included increased ACP Navigator visibility and a process for workflow-congruent ACP documentation. Accessible ACP documentation was measured by documentation within the ACP Navigator and was analyzed by interrupted time-series analysis. ACP Navigator access was measured by user audit logs. RESULTS: After the intervention, 6703 of 16,117 (41.6%) patient encounters had accessible ACP documentation, compared to 3689 of 13,143 (28.1%) preintervention (P < .001). In the intervention's first month, accessible ACP documentation increased 5.3% (P < .001, CI 2.9%-7.6%), followed by a 1.3% monthly increase relative to the preintervention period (P < .001, CI 1.0%-1.6%). ACP Navigator access for patients with ACP documentation increased in the intervention period (52.2% vs. 39.8%, P < .001). CONCLUSION: An institution-wide intervention significantly increased accessible ACP documentation within a centralized location of the EHR. EHR usability changes improved rates of accessible ACP documentation and subsequent views of this documentation.

Decisions in the Dark: An Educational Intervention to Promote Reflection and Feedback on Night Float Rotations.

BACKGROUND: Night float rotations, where residents admit patients to the hospital, are opportunities for practice-based learning. However, night float residents receive little feedback on their diagnostic and management reasoning, which limits learning. AIM: Improve night float residents' practice-based learning skills through feedback solicitation and chart review with guided reflection. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: Second- and third-year internal medicine residents on a 1-month night float rotation between January and August 2017. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: Residents performed chart review of a subset of patients they admitted during a night float rotation and completed reflection worksheets detailing patients' clinical courses. Residents solicited feedback regarding their initial management from day team attending physicians and senior residents. PROGRAM EVALUATION: Sixty-eight of 82 (83%) eligible residents participated in this intervention. We evaluated 248 reflection worksheets using content analysis. Major themes that emerged from chart review included residents' identification of future clinical practice changes, evolution of differential diagnoses, recognition of clinical reasoning gaps, and evaluation of resident-provider interactions. DISCUSSION: Structured reflection and feedback during night float rotations is an opportunity to improve practice-based learning through lessons on disease progression, clinical reasoning, and communication.

Prevalence and characterisation of diagnostic error among 7-day all-cause hospital medicine readmissions: a retrospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND: The prevalence and aetiology of diagnostic error among hospitalised adults is unknown, though likely contributes to patient morbidity and mortality. We aim to identify and characterise the prevalence and types of diagnostic error among patients readmitted within 7 days of hospital discharge. METHODS: Retrospective cohort study at a single urban academic hospital examining adult patients discharged from the medical service and readmitted to the same hospital within 7 days between January and December 2018. The primary outcome was diagnostic error presence, identified through two-physician adjudication using validated tools. Secondary outcomes included severity of error impact and characterisation of diagnostic process failures contributing to error. RESULTS: There were 391 cases of unplanned 7-day readmission (5.2% of 7507 discharges), of which 376 (96.2%) were reviewed. Twenty-one (5.6%) admissions were found to contain at least one diagnostic error during the index admission. The most common problem areas in the diagnostic process included failure to order needed test(s) (n=11, 52.4%), erroneous clinician interpretation of test(s) (n=10, 47.6%) and failure to consider the correct diagnosis (n=8, 38.1%). Nineteen (90.5%) of the diagnostic errors resulted in moderate clinical impact, primarily due to short-term morbidity or contribution to the readmission. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of diagnostic error among 7-day medical readmissions was 5.6%. The most common drivers of diagnostic error were related to clinician diagnostic reasoning. Efforts to reduce diagnostic error should include strategies to augment diagnostic reasoning and improve clinician decision-making around diagnostic studies.

A Discharge Time-Out: A Case Study on Physician-Nurse Discharge Communication and the Challenge of Sustainability in Resident-Led Quality Improvement.

Resident-led quality improvement (QI) is an important component of resident education yet sustainability of improvement and impact on resident education have rarely been explored. This study describes a resident-led intervention to improve nursing (RN)-provider (MD) communication at discharge-the Discharge Time-Out (DTO)- and explores its uptake and sustainability. One year later, residents were surveyed regarding QI self-efficacy and planned QI involvement. Baseline verbal RN-MD communication at discharge was rare. During DTO implementation, rates of structured communication averaged 56% (341/608) with several months >70%. During the monitoring phase, this fell to 45% and did not recover (833/1852). Participating residents reported increased QI self-efficacy (P < .05) and increased likelihood of participating in future QI (P < .05). The DTO increased RN-MD communication but was not sustained. Resident-led QI should explicitly address sustainability to achieve improvement and educational objectives. To foster resident education and avoid short-lived, low-impact projects, increased attention should be given to sustainability of resident-led QI.

Naloxone Distribution and Training for Patients with High-Risk Opioid Use in a Veterans Affairs Community-Based Primary Care Clinic.

CONTEXT: Naloxone distribution has historically been implemented in a community-based, expanded public health model; however, there is now a need to further explore primary care clinic-based naloxone delivery to effectively address the nationwide opioid epidemic. OBJECTIVE: To create a general medicine infrastructure to identify patients with high-risk opioid use and provide 25% of this population with naloxone autoinjector prescription and training within a 6-month period. DESIGN: The quality improvement study was conducted at an outpatient clinic serving 1238 marginally housed veterans with high rates of comorbid substance use and mental health disorders. Patients at high risk of opioid-related adverse events were identified using the Stratification Tool for Opioid Risk Management and were contacted to participate in a one-on-one, 15-minute, hands-on naloxone training led by nursing staff. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The number of patients identified at high risk and rates of naloxone training/distribution. RESULTS: There were 67 patients identified as having high-risk opioid use. None of these patients had been prescribed naloxone at baseline. At the end of the intervention, 61 patients (91%) had been trained in the use of naloxone. Naloxone was primarily distributed by licensed vocational nurses (42/61, 69%). CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates the feasibility of high-risk patient identification and of a primary care-based and nursing-championed naloxone distribution model. This delivery model has the potential to provide access to naloxone to a population of patients with opioid use who may not be engaged in mental health or specialty care.

A story of change: The influence of narrative on African-Americans with diabetes.

OBJECTIVE: To understand if narratives can be effective tools for diabetes empowerment, from the perspective of African-American participants in a program that improved diabetes self-efficacy and self-management. METHODS: In-depth interviews and focus groups were conducted with program graduates. Participants were asked to comment on the program's film, storytelling, and role-play, and whether those narratives had contributed to their diabetes behavior change. An iterative process of coding, analyzing, and summarizing transcripts was completed using the framework approach. RESULTS: African-American adults (n=36) with diabetes reported that narratives positively influenced the diabetes behavior change they had experienced by improving their attitudes/beliefs while increasing their knowledge/skills. The social proliferation of narrative - discussing stories, rehearsing their messages with role-play, and building social support through storytelling - was reported as especially influential. CONCLUSION: Utilizing narratives in group settings may facilitate health behavior change, particularly in minority communities with traditions of storytelling. Theoretical models explaining narrative's effect on behavior change should consider the social context of narratives. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Narratives may be promising tools to promote diabetes empowerment. Interventions using narratives may be more effective if they include group time to discuss and rehearse the stories presented, and if they foster an environment conducive to social support among participants.

Food Rx: a community-university partnership to prescribe healthy eating on the South Side of Chicago.

Patients living with diabetes in underserved communities face significant challenges to healthy eating. To support them, we need interventions that integrate community resources into the healthcare setting. A "prescription" for healthy food may be a promising platform for such a community-linked intervention: it can promote behavior change, provide nutrition education, include financial incentives, and connect patients to local resources. We describe Food Rx, a food prescription collaboratively developed by a university research team, Walgreens, a local farmers market, and six health centers on the South Side of Chicago. We share preliminary lessons learned from implementation, highlighting how each stakeholder (university, community partners, and clinics) contributed to this multifaceted effort while meeting research standards, organizational priorities, and clinic workflow demands. Although implementation is in early stages, Food Rx shows promise as a model for integrating community and healthcare resources to support the health of underserved patients.

"I Kept Coming for the Love": Enhancing the Retention of Urban African Americans in Diabetes Education.

PURPOSE: The purpose of the study was to investigate how retention strategies employed by the Diabetes Empowerment Program (DEP) contributed to retention. METHODS: An experienced moderator conducted in-depth interviews (n = 7) and 4 focus groups (n = 29) with former DEP participants. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and coded using iteratively modified coding guidelines. Results were analyzed using Atlas.ti 4.2 software. RESULTS: Participants were African American and predominantly female, low income, and with more than 1 diabetes complication. Key retention themes included: (1) educator characteristics and interpersonal skills ("The warmth of the staff . . . kept me coming back for more."), (2) accessible information ("I didn't know anything about diabetes [before]. I was just given the medicine."), (3) social support ("I realized I wasn't the only one who has diabetes."), (4) the use of narrative ("It's enlightening to talk about [my diabetes]."), and (5) the African American helping tradition ("I went not just for myself but for my husband."). CONCLUSIONS: While many interventions focus on costly logistics and incentives to retain at-risk participants, study findings suggest that utilizing culturally tailored curricula and emphasizing interpersonal skills and social support may be more effective strategies to retain low-income African Americans in diabetes education programs.