Sentiment Analysis of Patient- and Family-Related Sepsis Events: Exploratory Study.

BACKGROUND: Despite the life-threatening nature of sepsis, little is known about the emotional experiences of patients and their families during sepsis events. We conducted a sentiment analysis pertaining to sepsis incidents involving patients and families, leveraging textual data retrieved from a publicly available blog post disseminated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). OBJECTIVE: This investigation involved a sentiment analysis of patient- and family-related sepsis events, leveraging text responses sourced from a publicly accessible blog post disseminated by the CDC. Driven by the imperative to elucidate the emotional dynamics encountered by patients and their families throughout sepsis incidents, the overarching aims centered on elucidating the emotional ramifications of sepsis on both patients and their families and discerning potential avenues for enhancing the quality of sepsis care. METHODS: The research used a cross-sectional data mining methodology to investigate the sentiments and emotional aspects linked to sepsis, using a data set sourced from the CDC, which encompasses 170 responses from both patients and caregivers, spanning the period between September 2014 and September 2020. This investigation used the National Research Council Canada Emotion Lexicon for sentiment analysis, coupled with a combination of manual and automated techniques to extract salient features from textual responses. The study used negative binomial least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regressions to ascertain significant textual features that correlated with specific emotional states. Moreover, the visualization of Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions facilitated the discernment of prevailing emotions within the data set. RESULTS: The results showed that patients and their families experienced a range of emotions during sepsis events, including fear, anxiety, sadness, and gratitude. Our analyses revealed an estimated incidence rate ratio (IRR) of 1.35 for fear-related words and a 1.51 IRR for sadness-related words when mentioning "hospital" in sepsis-related experiences. Similarly, mentions of "intensive care unit" were associated with an average occurrence of 12.3 fear-related words and 10.8 sadness-related words. Surviving patients' experiences had an estimated 1.15 IRR for joy-related words, contrasting with discussions around organ failure, which were associated with multiple negative emotions including disgust, anger, fear, and sadness. Furthermore, mentions of "death" were linked to more fear and anger words but fewer joy-related words. Conversely, longer timelines in sepsis events were associated with more joy-related words and fewer fear-related words, potentially indicating improved emotional adaptation over time. CONCLUSIONS: The study's outcomes underscore the imperative for health care providers to integrate emotional support alongside medical interventions for patients and families affected by sepsis, emphasizing the emotional toll incurred and highlighting the necessity of acknowledgment and resolution, advocating for the use of sentiment analysis as a means to tailor personalized emotional aid, and thereby potentially augmenting both patient and family welfare and overall outcomes.

Systematic review exploring the effect of therapeutic hypothermia on patients with intracranial hypertension.

Background: Intracranial hypertension is found in patients with various neurological and neurosurgical conditions such as subarachnoid hemorrhage (more than 50% of the patients have intracranial pressure > 20 mmHg at some point during their hospital stay), traumatic brain injury, and stroke. Various modalities are used to control intracranial hypertension, therapeutic hypothermia is one of them. This systematic review aims to assess the efficacy of therapeutic hypothermia in controlling intracranial hypertension in an adult patient. Methods: A systematic review of the literature published between one patient 1990 and 2020 was conducted. Four databases were searched including CINAHL, PubMed, the Cochrane Library, and EMBASE using keywords traumatic brain injury, intracranial pressure, randomized and controlled trials, and the effect of therapeutic hypothermia on intracranial hypertension. Results: All of the studies included in this review were randomized controlled trials. Most of the studies provided their sample demographics. Sample sizes ranged from 14 to 501. Of the 12 studies, five of them were from the United Kingdom, three of them were from China, two from North America, one from India, and one from Japan. Conclusion: Treating intracranial hypertension with therapeutic hypothermia may be beneficial according to a few studies but it is also associated with many adverse effects. Both the groups suffered from adverse events which were higher in the hypothermic group. However, these adverse events can be managed in any health-care setting. To treat the patients with therapeutic hypothermia, one (the managing team) should be competent enough to manage the adverse effects.

A strategy to identify event specific hospitalizations in large health claims databases.

BACKGROUND: Health insurance claims data offer a unique opportunity to study disease distribution on a large scale. Challenges arise in the process of accurately analyzing these raw data. One important challenge to overcome is the accurate classification of study outcomes. For example, using claims data, there is no clear way of classifying hospitalizations due to a specific event. This is because of the inherent disjointedness and lack of context that typically come with raw claims data. METHODS: In this paper, we propose a framework for classifying hospitalizations due to a specific event. We then tested this framework in a private health insurance claims database (Symphony) with approximately 4 million US adults who tested positive with COVID-19 between March and December 2020. Our claims specific COVID-19 related hospitalizations proportion is then compared to nationally reported rates from the Centers for Disease Control by age. RESULTS: Across all ages (18 +) the total percentage of Symphony patients who met our definition of hospitalized due to COVID-19 was 7.3% which was similar to the CDC's estimate of 7.5%. By age group, defined by the CDC, our estimates vs. the CDC's estimates were 18-49: 2.7% vs. 3%, 50-64: 8.2% vs. 9.2%, and 65 + : 14.6% vs. 28.1%. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed methodology is a rigorous way to define event specific hospitalizations in claims data. This methodology can be extended to many different types of events and used on a variety of different types of claims databases.

Sentiment and emotion trends in nurses' tweets about the COVID-19 pandemic.

PURPOSE: Twitter is being increasingly used by nursing professionals to share ideas, information, and opinions about the global pandemic, yet there continues to be a lack of research on how nurse sentiment is associated with major events happening on the frontline. The purpose of the study was to quantitatively identify sentiments, emotions, and trends in nurses' tweets and to explore the variations in sentiments and emotions over a period in 2020 with respect to the number of cases and deaths of COVID-19 worldwide. DESIGN: A cross-sectional data mining study was held from March 3, 2020 through December 3, 2020. The tweets related to COVID-19 were downloaded using the tweet IDs available from a public website. Data were processed and filtered by searching for keywords related to nursing in the profile description field using the R software and JMP Pro Version 16 and the sentiment analysis of each tweet was done using AFINN, Bing, and NRC lexicon. FINDINGS: A total of 13,868 tweets from the Twitter accounts of self-identified nurses were included in the final analysis. The sentiment scores of nurses' tweets fluctuated over time and some clear patterns emerged related to the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Joy decreased and sadness increased over time as the pandemic impacts increased. CONCLUSIONS: Our study shows that Twitter data can be leveraged to study the emotions and sentiments of nurses, and the findings suggest that the emotional realm of nurses was affected during the COVID-19 pandemic according to the emotional trends observed in tweets. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: The study provides insight into what nurses are feeling, and findings from this study highlight the importance of developing and implementing interventions targeted at nurses at the workplace to prevent mental health consequences.

Effectiveness of a web-based learning module on oral health promotion for nursing and allied health professionals.

Background Nursing and allied health professionals are helping hands for healthcare and are important in the training cascade. We aimed to develop and validate the effectiveness of a web-based learning module on oral health promotion among nursing and allied health professionals. Methods We developed and validated an oral health module focused on prevention and promotion for a web-based intervention among nurses and allied health professionals. Pre- and post-test assessment was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme. Results Of a total of 347 participants, 170 (48.9%) had a good knowledge score in the pre-test, and after attending the oral health module their number increased to 267 (76.9%). The mean difference between the pre-test and post-test scores was statistically significant (p<0.005). Conclusions Training of nurses and allied health professionals on oral health through a web-based module showed improvement in oral health literacy.

Biometric Attendance and Big Data Analysis for Optimizing Work Processes.

Although biometric attendance management is available, large healthcare organizations have difficulty in big data analysis for optimization of work processes. The aim of this project was to assess the implementation of a biometric attendance system and its utility following big data analysis. In this prospective study the implementation of biometric system was evaluated over 3 month period at our institution. Software integration with other existing systems for data analysis was also evaluated. Implementation of the biometric system could be successfully done over a two month period with enrollment of 10,000 employees into the system. However generating reports and taking action this large number of staff was a challenge. For this purpose software was made for capturing the duty roster of each employee and integrating it with the biometric system and adding an SMS gateway. This helped in automating the process of sending SMSs to each employee who had not signed in. Standalone biometric systems have limited functionality in large organizations unless it is meshed with employee duty roster.

Use of Nurses in Tele-Consultation for Patients in Remote Areas.

UNLABELLED: There is poor penetration of trauma healthcare delivery in rural areas. On the other hand, mobile penetration in India is now averaging 80% with most families having access to mobile phone. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of tele-consultation by nurses using an integrated call centre. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a prospective observational study carried out over a 6-month period at a level I trauma Center in New Delhi, India. Patients called the call centre and the specially trained call centre staff answered the calls who handled their simple queries, if they were unable to respond, the call was directed to the nurse informatics specialist on duty responded to their queries with the help of senior residents who were posted in emergency department. The nurse informatics specialist documents a tele-consult note in CPRS (Computerized Patient Record System). RESULTS: Of the total 150 calls, 64 calls were diverted to the nurse informatics specialist (NIS). Of the 64 calls received by the NIS 55 (85%) were rectified by the nurses at their level and 9 calls (14%) were further discussed with the concerned doctors. CONCLUSIONS: As shown by our case study, call centers can be used for tele consultation with the help of nurse informatics specialist.

Using a Call Centre for Data Mining and Data Capturing - Pilot Study Using Glasgow Coma Outcome Scale in Head Injured Patients.

UNLABELLED: Trauma healthcare delivery is limited in rural areas of India. AIM: The aim of the study was to assess the Glasgow coma outcome scale via a call centre for head injured patients who were discharged after head injury. METHODS: Glascow coma scales were assessed by call-center staff using a set of standard questions in Hindi language. RESULTS: 484 patients were admitted during the study period. Of these, 63% (n = 305) were from rural areas. After patients were discharged, call centre staff were able to reach 84% of patients on their phones and elicit GOS in all cases. CONCLUSIONS: Call centers have the potential to revolutionize delivery of trauma healthcare to rural areas.

Impact of an Emergency Nurse Coordinator on Work Flow Optimization in an Emergency Department in Delhi, India.

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of the emergency nurse coordinator in optimization of workflow of the emergency department. A retrospective analysis of all patient encounters in the emergency department between Aug 1 to Sept 31 of 2014 (n = 6,189) and Aug 1 to September 31 of 2015 (n = 8,626) was conducted. There was a statistically significant decrease in the admission time, length of stay, transfer time, and review time of the patients after the introduction of the emergency nurse coordinator in the emergency department. (p < 0.05).