Understanding Patients' Decisions to Obtain Unplanned, High-Resource Health Care After Colorectal Surgery.

Readmissions and emergency department (ED) visits after colorectal surgery (CRS) are common, burdensome, and costly. Effective strategies to reduce these unplanned postdischarge health care visits require a nuanced understanding of how and why patients make the decision to seek care. We used a purposefully stratified sample of 18 interview participants from a prospective cohort of adult CRS patients. Thirteen (72%) participants had an unplanned postdischarge health care visit. Participant decision-making was classified by methodology (algorithmic, guided, or impulsive), preexisting rationale, and emotional response to perceived health care needs. Participants voiced clear mental algorithms about when to visit an ED. In addition, participants identified facilitators and barriers to optimal health care use. They also identified tangible targets for health care utilization reduction efforts, such as improved care coordination with streamlined discharge instructions and improved communication with the surgical team. Efforts should be directed at improving postdischarge communication and care coordination to reduce CRS patients' high-resource health care utilization.

A naturalistic study of the measurement of seizure adequacy in electroconvulsive therapy.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess an electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) rating scale by studying the intraictal electroencephalograph parameters induced by the seizure, and determine the clinical utility of such a scale in terms of time, application and ease of use. METHOD: This naturalistic study of 55 depressed patients over a 2-year period examined specific parameters of the intraictal electroencephalograph seizure morphology and computer printout, and their association with overall clinical outcome. The rating scale was developed and evaluated in terms of clinical reliability and ease of use. RESULTS: Overall, 1076 individual ECT treatments were given. Using multiple regression analysis, overall seizure adequacy correlated most closely with abrupt seizure endpoint, a high amplitude rhythmic spike and wave phase of >13 s, a seizure energy index of >1000 u, and an electroencephalograph seizure length of > 24 s. "Adequate" overall ratings as determined by the rating scale were shown to correlate significantly with overall clinical improvement. The rating scale had extremely high interrater and test-retest reliability; and was relatively easy to use and time efficient. CONCLUSIONS: The use of the rating scale has the potential to help clinicians optimize ECT. While not perfect in any sense, it still gives clinicians good predictive qualities when used as a clinical guide. It is important that larger studies look at all the potential variables that may interact with seizure adequacy and clinical outcome.