Trends in Active Treatment of Live-born Neonates Between 22 Weeks 0 Days and 25 Weeks 6 Days by Gestational Age and Maternal Race and Ethnicity in the US, 2014 to 2020.

Importance: Birth in the periviable period between 22 weeks 0 days and 25 weeks 6 days' gestation is a major source of neonatal morbidity and mortality, and the decision to initiate active life-saving treatment is challenging. Objective: To assess whether the frequency of active treatment among live-born neonates in the periviable period has changed over time and whether active treatment differed by gestational age at birth and race and ethnicity. Design, Setting, and Participants: Serial cross-sectional descriptive study using National Center for Health Statistics natality data from 2014 to 2020 for 61 908 singleton live births without clinical anomalies between 22 weeks 0 days and 25 weeks 6 days in the US. Exposures: Year of delivery, gestational age at birth, and race and ethnicity of the pregnant individual, stratified as non-Hispanic Asian/Pacific Islander, non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic/Latina, and non-Hispanic White. Main Outcomes and Measures: Active treatment, determined by whether there was an attempt to treat the neonate and defined as a composite of surfactant therapy, immediate assisted ventilation at birth, assisted ventilation more than 6 hours in duration, and/or antibiotic therapy. Frequencies, mean annual percent change (APC), and adjusted risk ratios (aRRs) were estimated. Results: Of 26 986 716 live births, 61 908 (0.2%) were periviable live births included in this study: 5% were Asian/Pacific Islander, 37% Black, 24% Hispanic, and 34% White; and 14% were born at 22 weeks, 21% at 23 weeks, 30% at 24 weeks, and 34% at 25 weeks. Fifty-two percent of neonates received active treatment. From 2014 to 2020, the overall frequency (mean APC per year) of active treatment increased significantly (3.9% [95% CI, 3.0% to 4.9%]), as well as among all racial and ethnic subgroups (Asian/Pacific Islander: 3.4% [95% CI, 0.8% to 6.0%]); Black: 4.7% [95% CI, 3.4% to 5.9%]; Hispanic: 4.7% [95% CI, 3.4% to 5.9%]; and White: 3.1% [95% CI, 1.1% to 4.4%]) and among each gestational age range (22 weeks: 14.4% [95% CI, 11.1% to 17.7%] and 25 weeks: 2.9% [95% CI, 1.5% to 4.2%]). Compared with neonates born to White individuals (57.0%), neonates born to Asian/Pacific Islander (46.2%; risk difference [RD], -10.81 [95% CI, -12.75 to -8.88]; aRR, 0.82 [95% CI, [0.79-0.86]), Black (51.6%; RD, -5.42 [95% CI, -6.36 to -4.50]; aRR, 0.90 [95% CI, 0.89 to 0.92]), and Hispanic (48.0%; RD, -9.03 [95% CI, -10.07 to -7.99]; aRR, 0.83 [95% CI, 0.81 to 0.85]) individuals were significantly less likely to receive active treatment. Conclusions and Relevance: From 2014 to 2020 in the US, the frequency of active treatment among neonates born alive between 22 weeks 0 days and 25 weeks 6 days significantly increased, and there were differences in rates of active treatment by race and ethnicity.

Teaming in the contemporary fertility clinic: creating a culture to optimize patient care.

When a diverse group of individuals is working together in the contemporary fertility clinic to provide time-sensitive and complex care for patients, a high degree of coordination and collaboration must take place. When performed dynamically, this process is referred to as teaming. Although the positive impact of teamwork in health care settings has been well established in the literature, the concept of teaming has limited foundation in the clinic. This review will provide an overview of how teaming can be used to improve patient care in today's fertility clinics. Approaches to integrating teaming into the clinic that will be discussed include framing, the creation of a psychologically safe environment for staff input, and facilitating collaborative constructs to support teaming. Best practices to implement teaming and how to address challenges to teaming in today's clinical environment will also be addressed.

Individualized therapy trials: navigating patient care, research goals and ethics.

'Individualized therapy' trials (sometimes called n-of-1 trials) use patients as their own controls to evaluate treatments. Here we divide such trials into three categories: multi-crossover trials aimed at individual patient management, multi-crossover trial series and pre-post trials. These trials all customize interventions for patients; however, the latter two categories also aim to inform medical practice and thus embody tensions between the goals of care and research that are typical of other types of clinical trials. In this Perspective, we discuss four domains where such tensions play out-clinical equipoise, informed consent, reporting and funding, and we provide recommendations for addressing each.

Patients, procedures, and PPE: Safe office-based anesthesia recommendations in the COVID-19 era.

The growth of office-based surgery (OBS) has been due to ease of scheduling and convenience for patients; office-based anesthesia safety continues to be well supported in the literature. In 2020, the Coronavirus Disease 19 (COVID-19) has resulted in dramatic shifts in healthcare, especially in the office-based setting. The goal of closing the economy was to flatten the curve, impacting office-based and ambulatory practices. Reopening of the economy and the return to ambulatory surgery and OBS and procedures have created a challenge due to COVID-19 and the infectious disease precautions that must be taken. Patients may be more apt to return to the outpatient setting to avoid the hospital, especially with the resurgence of COVID-19 cases locally, nationally, and worldwide. This review provides algorithms for screening and testing patients, selecting patients for procedures, choosing appropriate procedures, and selecting suitable personal protective equipment in this unprecedented period.

The "collateral damage" of the war on COVID-19: impact of the pandemic on the care of epithelial ovarian cancer.

The covid-19 pandemic has impacted the management of non-covid-19 illnesses. Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) requires long-duration multidisciplinary treatment. Teleconsultation and shared care are suggested solutions to mitigate the consequences of the pandemic. However, these may be challenging to implement among patients who come from the lower economic strata. We report the disastrous impact of the pandemic on the care of EOC by comparing patients who were treated during the pandemic with those treated in the previous year. We collected the following data from newly diagnosed patients with EOC: time from diagnosis to treatment, time for completion of planned chemotherapy, and proportion of patients completing various components of therapy (surgery and chemotherapy). Patients treated between January 2019 and September 2019 (Group 1: Pre-covid) were compared with those treated between January 2020 and December 2020 (Group 2: During covid pandemic). A total of 82 patients were registered [Group 1: 43(51%) Group 2: 39(49)]. The median time from diagnosis to start of treatment was longer in group 2 when compared to group 1 [31(23-58) days versus 17(11-30) days (p = 0.03)]. The proportion of patients who had surgery in group 2 was lower in comparison to group 1 [33(77%) versus 21(54%) (p = 0.02)]. Proportion of patients who underwent neoadjuvant (NACT) and surgery were fewer in group 2 in comparison to group 1 [9(33%) versus 18(64%) p = 0.002]. Among patients planned for adjuvant chemotherapy, the median time from diagnosis to treatment was longer in group 2 [28(17-45) days, group 1 versus 49(26-78) days, group 2 (p = 0.04)]. The treatment of patients with EOC was adversely impacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a compromise in the proportion of patients completing planned therapy. Even among those who completed the treatment, there were considerable delays when compared with the pre-covid period. The impact of these compromises on the outcomes will be known with longer follow-up.

[New patient care techniques: nutritional coaching]. / Nuevas técnicas de atención al paciente: el coaching nutricional.

INTRODUCTION: To achieve behavioral changes, as well as to prevent the appearance of non-communicable diseases, nutritional education has traditionally been used. However, the prevalence of some chronic diseases is still increasing. This has led to the development of new patient care techniques such as nutritional coaching, in which the patient plays an active role during the change process. The available scientific evidence indicates that nutritional coaching, as well as health coaching, is an effective tool to achieve lasting changes in diet and lifestyle.

INTRODUCCIÓN: Para conseguir cambios de comportamiento, así como para prevenir la aparición de enfermedades no transmisibles, tradicionalmente se ha empleado la educación nutricional. Sin embargo, la prevalencia de algunas enfermedades crónicas sigue aumentado. Esto ha hecho que se hayan desarrollado nuevas técnicas de atención al paciente como el coaching,, así como el coaching de salud, en el que el paciente juega un papel activo durante el proceso del cambio. La evidencia científica disponible señala que el coaching nutricional es una herramienta efectiva para conseguir cambios duraderos en la dieta y el estilo de vida.

New Horizons-Addressing Healthcare Disparities in Endocrine Disease: Bias, Science, and Patient Care.

Unacceptable healthcare disparities in endocrine disease have persisted for decades, and 2021 presents a difficult evolving environment. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the gross structural inequities that drive health disparities, and antiracism demonstrations remind us that the struggle for human rights continues. Increased public awareness and discussion of disparities present an urgent opportunity to advance health equity. However, it is more complicated to change the behavior of individuals and reform systems because societies are polarized into different factions that increasingly believe, accept, and live different realities. To reduce health disparities, clinicians must (1) truly commit to advancing health equity and intentionally act to reduce health disparities; (2) create a culture of equity by looking inwards for personal bias and outwards for the systemic biases built into their everyday work processes; (3) implement practical individual, organizational, and community interventions that address the root causes of the disparities; and (4) consider their roles in addressing social determinants of health and influencing healthcare payment policy to advance health equity. To care for diverse populations in 2021, clinicians must have self-insight and true understanding of heterogeneous patients, knowledge of evidence-based interventions, ability to adapt messaging and approaches, and facility with systems change and advocacy. Advancing health equity requires both science and art; evidence-based roadmaps and stories that guide the journey to better outcomes, judgment that informs how to change the behavior of patients, providers, communities, organizations, and policymakers, and passion and a moral mission to serve humanity.

Optimizing the Potential for Telehealth in Cardiovascular Care (in the Era of COVID-19): Time Will Tell.

Before the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, use of telehealth services had been limited in cardiovascular care. Potential benefits of telehealth include improved access to care, more efficient care management, reduced costs, the ability to assess patients within their homes while involving key caretakers in medical decisions, maintaining social distance, and increased patient satisfaction. Challenges include changes in payment models, issues with data security and privacy, potential depersonalization of the patient-clinician relationship, limitations in the use of digital health technologies, and the potential impact on disparities, including socioeconomic, gender, and age-related issues and access to technology and broadband. Implementation and expansion of telehealth from a policy and reimbursement practice standpoint are filled with difficult decisions, yet addressing these are critical to the future of health care.

Nuevas técnicas de atención al paciente: el coaching nutricional / New patient care techniques: nutritional coaching

Para conseguir cambios de comportamiento, así como para prevenir la aparición de enfermedades no transmisibles, tradicionalmente se ha empleado la educación nutricional. Sin embargo, la prevalencia de algunas enfermedades crónicas sigue aumentado. Esto ha hecho que se hayan desarrollado nuevas técnicas de atención al paciente como el coaching, en el que el paciente juega un papel activo durante el proceso del cambio. La evidencia científica disponible señala que el coaching nutricional, así como el coaching de salud, es una herramienta efectiva para conseguir cambios duraderos en la dieta y el estilo de vida. (AU)

To achieve behavioral changes, as well as to prevent the appearance of non-communicable diseases, nutritional education has traditionally been used. However, the prevalence of some chronic diseases is still increasing. This has led to the development of new patient care techniques such as nutritional coaching, in which the patient plays an active role during the change process. The available scientific evidence indicates that nutritional coaching, as well as health coaching, is an effective tool to achieve lasting changes in diet and lifestyle. (AU)

Is There a Replication Crisis in Medical Education Research?

Scholars are increasingly aware that studies-across many disciplines-cannot be replicated by independent researchers. Here, the authors describe how medical education research may be vulnerable to this "replication crisis," explain how researchers can act together to reduce risks, and discuss the positive steps that can increase confidence in research findings. Medical education research contributes to policy and influences practitioner behavior. Findings that cannot be replicated suggest that the original research was not credible. This risk raises the possibility that unhelpful or even harmful changes to medical education have been implemented as a result of research that appeared defensible but was not. By considering these risk factors, researchers can increase the likelihood that studies are generating credible results. The authors discuss and provide examples of 6 factors that may endanger the replicability of medical education research: (1) small sample sizes, (2) small effect sizes, (3) exploratory designs, (4) flexibility in design choices, analysis strategy, and outcome measures, (5) conflicts of interest, and (6) very active fields with many competing research teams. Importantly, medical education researchers can adopt techniques used successfully elsewhere to improve the rigor of their investigations. Researchers can improve their work through better planning in the development stage, carefully considering design choices, and using sensible data analysis. The wider medical education community can help by encouraging higher levels of collaboration among medical educators, by routinely evaluating existing educational innovations, and by raising the prestige of replication and collaborative medical education research. Medical education journals should adopt new approaches to publishing. As medical education research improves, so too will the quality of medical education and patient care.

Uveal melanoma: laboratory advances and new frontiers in patient care.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To review recent advancements in the genetic understanding, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of uveal melanoma (UM). RECENT FINDINGS: UM is a molecularly distinct melanocytic malignancy driven by mutations in GNAQ or GNA11, with mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway upregulation. Earlier diagnosis and treatment are important factors for improving life prognosis. These goals can be aided by more objective multimodal imaging risk factors for the prediction of malignant nevus transformation and novel treatment strategies such as customized radiation fields and nanoparticle therapy to reduce vision-threatening treatment side effects. The risk for metastatic disease can be reliably predicted through gene expression profiling or the Cancer Genome Atlas project classification, and combined use of clinical tumor features with molecular data allows for highly individualized patient prognosis. Patients with high-risk UM should be considered for clinical trials of adjuvant therapy to prevent metastatic disease. For patients with clinically evident metastasis, combination immunotherapy regimens, T cell-based therapies, and focal adhesion kinase inhibitors offer hope for improved clinical response rates. SUMMARY: Improved understanding of UM molecular pathogenesis and clinical trials of targeted therapy for prevention and treatment of metastatic disease may improve patient survival for this challenging disease.

Inpatient diabetes care during the COVID-19 pandemic: A Diabetes UK rapid review of healthcare professionals' experiences using semi-structured interviews.

AIMS: Inpatient care for people with diabetes can and must be improved. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the way care is delivered across the UK. Diabetes UK needed to understand how inpatient care for people with diabetes has been affected and to identify opportunities, areas of concerns and recommendations for the future. METHODS: We interviewed 28 healthcare professionals and hospital teams from across the UK to find out about their experiences of delivering inpatient diabetes care during the first peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. RESULTS: We found that disruption to inpatient diabetes services created positive environments and opportunities for new ways of working, but in the minority, impacted on the quality of care clinicians felt they were able to deliver. CONCLUSIONS: It is important that these positive ways of working be maintained and as a result of these experiences we have outlined urgent recommendations for the challenging winter months ahead.

A systematic review of mobile health interventions in China: Identifying gaps in care.

INTRODUCTION: Mobile health has a promising future in the healthcare system in most developed countries. China's rapidly developing mobile technology infrastructure offers an unprecedented opportunity for wide adoption of mobile health interventions in the delivery of effective and timely healthcare services. However, there is little data on the current extent of the mobile health landscape in China. The aim of this study was to systematically review the existing mobile health initiatives in China, characterise the technology used, disease categories targeted, location of the end user (urban versus rural), and examine the potential effects of mobile health on health system strengthening in China. Furthermore, we identified gaps in development and evaluation of the effectiveness of mobile health interventions. METHODS: A systematic review of the literature published from 18 December 2015 - 3 April 2019 was conducted and yielded 2863 articles from English and Chinese retrieval database and trial registries, including PubMed, EMBASE, China National Knowledge of Infrastructure and World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform. Studies were included if they used mobile health to support patient healthcare outcomes. RESULTS: A total of 1129 full-text articles were assessed and 338 were included in this study. The review found that most studies targeted client education and behaviour change via applications (apps) (65.4%), including WeChat, and text messaging (short text messages) (19.8%) to improve patient medical treatment outcomes such as compliance and appointment reminders. The most common disease-specific mobile health interventions focused primarily on chronic disease management and behaviour change in cardiology (13.3%), endocrinology/diabetes (12.1%), behavioural health (11.8%), oncology (11.2%) and neurology (6.8%). The mobile health interventions related to nutrition (0.6%) and chronic respiratory diseases (1.6%) are underrepresented in mobile health in comparison to the burden of disease in China. The majority (90.0%) of the mobile health interventions were conducted exclusively in urban areas, with few opportunities reaching rural populations. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, mobile health has a promising future in China, with recent rapid growth in initiatives. The majority are focused on education and behaviour change in the realm of chronic diseases and target patients in urban areas. The imbalance in mobile health between the urban and rural areas, as well as between population disease spectrum and health service delivery, pose substantial dilemmas. However, mobile health may be redirected to correct this imbalance, possibly improving access to healthcare services, and filling the gaps in order to improve health equity for the underserved populations in China.