Building an inpatient addiction medicine consult service in Sudbury, Canada: preliminary data and lessons learned in the era of COVID-19.

OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study was to (1) Describe the patient population of a newly implemented addiction medicine consult service (AMCS); (2) Evaluate referrals to community-based addiction support services and acute health service use, over time; (3) Provide lessons learned. METHODS: A retrospective observational analysis was conducted at Health Sciences North in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, with a newly implemented AMCS from November 2018 and July 2021. Data were collected using the hospital's electronic medical records. The outcomes measured included the number of emergency department visits, inpatient admissions, and re-visits over time. An interrupted time-series analysis was performed to measure the effect of AMCS implementation on acute health service use at Health Sciences North. RESULTS: A total of 833 unique patients were assessed through the AMCS. A total of 1,294 referrals were made to community-based addiction support services, with the highest proportion of referrals between August and October 2020. The post-intervention trend for ED visits, ED re-visits, ED length of stay, inpatient visits, re-visits, and inpatient length of stay did not significantly differ from the pre-intervention period. CONCLUSION: Implementation of an AMCS provides a focused service for patients using with substance use disorders. The service resulted in a high referral rate to community-based addiction support services and limited changes in health service usage.

Saudi Guidelines on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Pulmonary Hypertension: Challenges in managing pulmonary hypertension in the developing countries.

There is scant published data about pulmonary hypertension (PH) from the developing countries. True prevalence of the disease, its biology, etiology and response to treatment are not well known, and they are likely to be somewhat different from that of the developed countries. In this review, we will discuss the main challenges for managing PH in developing countries and propose real-life recommendations to deal with such difficulties.