Analysis of health inequities in transfers of admitted patients from an academic emergency department to partner community hospital.

BACKGROUND: Many academic medical centers (AMC) transfer patients who require admission but not tertiary care to partner community hospitals from their emergency departments (ED). These transfers alleviate ED boarding but may worsen existing healthcare disparities. We assessed whether disparities exist in the transfer of patients from one AMC ED to a community hospital General Medical Service. METHODS: We performed a retrospective cohort study on all patients screened for transfer between April 1 and December 31, 2021. During the screening process, the treating ED physician determines whether the patient meets standardized clinical criteria and a patient coordinator requests patient consent. We collected patient demographics data from the electronic health record and performed logistic regression at each stage of the transfer process to analyze how individual characteristics impact the odds of proceeding with transfer. RESULTS: 5558 patients were screened and 596 (11%) ultimately transferred. 1999 (36%) patients were Black or Hispanic, 698 (12%) had a preferred language other than English, and 956 (17%) were on Medicaid or uninsured. A greater proportion of Black and Hispanic patients were deemed eligible for interhospital transfer compared to White patients and a greater proportion of Hispanic patients completed transfer to the community hospital (p < 0.017 after Bonferroni correction). After accounting for other demographic variables, patients older than 50 (OR 1.21, 95% CI 1.04-1.40), with a preferred language other than English (OR 1.27, 95% CI 1.00-1.62), and from a priority neighborhood (OR 1.38, 95% CI 1.18-1.61) were more likely to be eligible for transfer, while patients who were male (OR 1.50, 95% CI 1.10-2.05) and younger than 50 (OR 1.85, 95% CI 1.20-2.78) were more likely to consent to transfer (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Health disparities exist in the screening process for our interfacility transfer program. Further investigation into why these disparities exist and mitigation strategies should be undertaken.

Code De-Escalation: Decreasing restraint use during agitation management in a community hospital emergency department.

INTRODUCTION: Restraint use in the emergency department (ED) can pose significant risks to patients and health care workers. We evaluate the effectiveness of Code De-escalation- a standardized, team-based approach for management and assessment of threatening behaviors- in reducing physical restraint use and workplace violence in a community ED. METHODS: A retrospective observational study of a pathway on physical restraint use among patients placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold in a community ED. This pathway includes a built-in step for the team members to systematically assess perceptions of threats from the patient behavior and threats perceived by the patient. Our primary outcome was the change in the rate of physical restraint use among patients on an involuntary psychiatric hold. Our secondary outcome was the change in the rate of workplace violence events involving all ED encounters. We evaluated our outcomes by comparing all encounters in a ten-month period before and after implementation, and compared our results to rates at neighboring community hospitals within the same hospital network. RESULTS: Pre intervention there were 434 ED encounters involving a psychiatric hold, post-intervention there were 535. We observed a significant decrease in physical restraint use, from 7.4% to 3.7% (ARR 0.028 [95% CI 0.002-0.055], p < 0.05). This was not seen at the control sites. CONCLUSIONS: A standardized de-escalation algorithm can be effective in helping ED's decrease their use of physical restraints in management of psychiatric patients experiencing agitation.

Machine Learning Methods for Predicting Patient-Level Emergency Department Workload.

BACKGROUND: Work Relative Value Units (wRVUs) are a component of many compensation models, and a proxy for the effort required to care for a patient. Accurate prediction of wRVUs generated per patient at triage could facilitate real-time load balancing between physicians and provide many practical operational and clinical benefits. OBJECTIVE: We examined whether deep-learning approaches could predict the wRVUs generated by a patient's visit using data commonly available at triage. METHODS: Adult patients presenting to an urban, academic emergency department from July 1, 2016-March 1, 2020 were included. Deidentified triage information included structured data (age, sex, vital signs, Emergency Severity Index score, language, race, standardized chief complaint) and unstructured data (free-text chief complaint) with wRVUs as outcome. Five models were examined: average wRVUs per chief complaint, linear regression, neural network and gradient-boosted tree on structured data, and neural network on unstructured textual data. Models were evaluated using mean absolute error. RESULTS: We analyzed 204,064 visits between July 1, 2016 and March 1, 2020. The median wRVUs were 3.80 (interquartile range 2.56-4.21), with significant effects of age, gender, and race. Models demonstrated lower error as complexity increased. Predictions using averages from chief complaints alone demonstrated a mean error of 2.17 predicted wRVUs per visit (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.07-2.27), the linear regression model: 1.00 wRVUs (95% CI 0.97-1.04), gradient-boosted tree: 0.85 wRVUs (95% CI 0.84-0.86), neural network with structured data: 0.86 wRVUs (95% CI 0.85-0.87), and neural network with unstructured data: 0.78 wRVUs (95% CI 0.76-0.80). CONCLUSIONS: Chief complaints are a poor predictor of the effort needed to evaluate a patient; however, deep-learning techniques show promise. These algorithms have the potential to provide many practical applications, including balancing workloads and compensation between emergency physicians, quantify crowding and mobilizing resources, and reducing bias in the triage process.

Hospital Occupancy and its Effect on Emergency Department Evaluation.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To examine whether hospital occupancy was associated with increased testing and treatment during emergency department (ED) evaluations, resulting in reduced admissions. METHODS: We analyzed the electronic health records of an urban academic ED. We linked data from all ED visits from October 1, 2010, to May 29, 2015, with daily hospital occupancy (inpatients/total staffed beds). Outcome measures included the frequency of laboratory testing, advanced imaging, medication administration, and hospitalizations. We modeled each outcome using multivariable negative binomial or logistic regression, as appropriate, and examined their association with daily hospital occupancy quartiles, controlling for patient and visit characteristics. We calculated the adjusted outcome rates and relative changes at each daily hospital occupancy quartile using marginal estimating methods. RESULTS: We included 270,434 ED visits with a mean patient age of 48.1 (standard deviation 19.8) years; 40.1% were female, 22.8% were non-Hispanic Black, and 51.5% were commercially insured. Hospital occupancy was not associated with differences in laboratory testing, advanced imaging, or medication administration. Compared with the first quartile, the third and fourth quartiles of daily hospital occupancy were associated with decreases of 1.5% (95% confidence interval [CI] -2.9 to -0.2; absolute change -0.6 percentage points [95% CI -1.2 to -0.1]) and 4.6% (95% CI -6.0 to -3.2; absolute change -1.9 percentage points [95% CI -2.5 to -1.3]) in hospitalizations, respectively. CONCLUSION: The lack of association between hospital occupancy and laboratory testing, advanced imaging, and medication administration suggest that changes in ED testing or treatment did not facilitate the decrease in admissions during periods of high hospital occupancy.

Epstein-Barr virus latent membrane protein-1 up-regulates cytokines and correlates with older age and poorer prognosis in Hodgkin lymphoma.

AIMS: Previously, we reported an association between Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-positive Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), older age, and poorer prognosis. The aim of this study was to investigate the mechanisms underlying this association. METHODS AND RESULTS: Transfection of HL cell lines with EBV latent membrane protein-1 (LMP1) resulted in up-regulation of many cytokine genes as assessed by the use of oligonucleotide microarrays. The up-regulation of cytokines was validated by using an inflammatory cytokine protein array: macrophage inflammatory protein (MIP)-1α, MIP-1ß, and interleukin (IL)-13. Immunostaining of HL samples (n = 104) showed that expression of MIP-1α, MIP-1ß and IL-13 correlated with EBV infection and LMP1 expression. Combined expression of these cytokines was more common in patients aged >60 years (P < 0.001), and was associated with a poorer prognosis (P = 0.042). In another cohort, serum levels of MIP-1α, MIP-1ß and IL-13 were increased in HL patients (n = 53) and highest in EBV-positive HL patients as compared with healthy controls (n = 40). Xenograft mice injected with EBV-positive HL cells had higher serum levels of MIP-1α, MIP-1ß and IL-13 than mice injected with EBV-negative HL cells, although there was no difference in growth. CONCLUSIONS: EBV infection appears to promote the release of cytokines in HL patients, and negatively impacts on patient survival. Physiological immunosenescence probably explains the association between EBV infection and older age. Cytokine modulation is a potential therapeutic target for EBV-positive HL patients.

Impact of Care Initiation Model on Emergency Department Orders and Operational Metrics: Cohort Study.

INTRODUCTION: Emergency departments (ED) employ many strategies to address crowding and prolonged wait times. They include front-end Care Initiation and clinician-in-triage models that start the diagnostic and therapeutic process while the patient waits for a care space in the ED. The objective of this study was to quantify the impact of a Care Initiation model on resource utilization and operational metrics in the ED. METHODS: We performed a retrospective analysis of ED visits at our institution during October 2021. Baseline characteristics were compared with Chi-square and quantile regression. We used t-tests to calculate unadjusted difference in outcome measures, including number of laboratory tests ordered and average time patients spent in the waiting room and the ED treatment room, and the time from arrival until ED disposition. We performed propensity score analysis using matching and inverse probability weighting to quantify the direct impact of Care Initiation on outcome measures. RESULTS: There were 2,407 ED patient encounters, 1,191 (49%) of whom arrived during the hours when Care Initiation was active. A total of 811 (68%) of these patients underwent Care Initiation, while the remainder proceeded directly to the main treatment area. Patients were more likely to undergo Care Initiation if they had lower acuity and lower risk of admission, and if the ED was busier as measured by the number of recent arrivals and percentage of occupied ED beds. After adjusting for patient-specific and department-level covariates, Care Initiation did not increase the number of diagnostic laboratory tests ordered. Care Initiation was associated with increased waiting room time by 1.8 hours and longer time from arrival until disposition by 1.3 hours, but with decreased time in the main treatment area by 0.6 hours, which represents a 15% reduction. CONCLUSION: Care Initiation was associated with a 15% reduction in time spent in the main ED treatment area but longer waiting room time and longer time until ED disposition without significantly increasing the number of laboratory studies ordered. While previous studies produced similar results with Care Initiation models accessing all diagnostic modalities including imaging, our study demonstrates that a more limited Care Initiation model can still result in operational benefits for EDs.

A Novel Multidisciplinary Team Activation for Patients with Severe Gastrointestinal Bleeding: Creation of the Code GI Bleed Protocol.

Patients with gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding present to the emergency department (ED) with a wide spectrum of illness severity. Among the most critically ill patients, comorbidities and other risk factors, such as liver disease and anticoagulation, can complicate their management. These patients are resource-intensive to stabilize and resuscitate, often requiring the continuous attention of multiple ED staff members along with rapid mobilization of specialty care. At a tertiary care hospital with the ability to provide definitive care for the most critically ill patients with GI bleeding, we introduced a multi-disciplinary team activation pathway to bring together specialists to immediately respond to the ED. We designed a Code GI Bleed pathway to expedite hemodynamic stabilization, diagnostics, source control, and timely disposition out of the ED to the intensive care unit or relevant procedural area of the hospital.

Race and Ethnicity and Primary Language in Emergency Department Triage.

Importance: Emergency department (ED) triage substantially affects how long patients wait for care but triage scoring relies on few objective criteria. Prior studies suggest that Black and Hispanic patients receive unequal triage scores, paralleled by disparities in the depth of physician evaluations. Objectives: To examine whether racial disparities in triage scores and physician evaluations are present across a multicenter network of academic and community hospitals and evaluate whether patients who do not speak English face similar disparities. Design, Setting, and Participants: This was a cross-sectional, multicenter study examining adults presenting between February 28, 2019, and January 1, 2023, across the Mass General Brigham Integrated Health Care System, encompassing 7 EDs: 2 urban academic hospitals and 5 community hospitals. Analysis included all patients presenting with 1 of 5 common chief symptoms. Exposures: Emergency department nurse-led triage and physician evaluation. Main Outcomes and Measures: Average Triage Emergency Severity Index [ESI] score and average visit work relative value units [wRVUs] were compared across symptoms and between individual minority racial and ethnic groups and White patients. Results: There were 249 829 visits (149 861 female [60%], American Indian or Alaska Native 0.2%, Asian 3.3%, Black 11.8%, Hispanic 18.8%, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander <0.1%, White 60.8%, and patients identifying as Other race or ethnicity 5.1%). Median age was 48 (IQR, 29-66) years. White patients had more acute ESI scores than Hispanic or Other patients across all symptoms (eg, chest pain: Hispanic, 2.68 [95% CI, 2.67-2.69]; White, 2.55 [95% CI, 2.55-2.56]; Other, 2.66 [95% CI, 2.64-2.68]; P < .001) and Black patients across most symptoms (nausea/vomiting: Black, 2.97 [95% CI, 2.96-2.99]; White: 2.90 [95% CI, 2.89-2.91]; P < .001). These differences were reversed for wRVUs (chest pain: Black, 4.32 [95% CI, 4.25-4.39]; Hispanic, 4.13 [95% CI, 4.08-4.18]; White 3.55 [95% CI, 3.52-3.58]; Other 3.96 [95% CI, 3.84-4.08]; P < .001). Similar patterns were seen for patients whose primary language was not English. Conclusions and Relevance: In this cross-sectional study, patients who identified as Black, Hispanic, and Other race and ethnicity were assigned less acute ESI scores than their White peers despite having received more involved physician workups, suggesting some degree of mistriage. Clinical decision support systems might reduce these disparities but would require careful calibration to avoid replicating bias.

Assessing Patient Experience and Orientation in the Emergency Department with Virtual Windows.

Patients have benefitted from increasingly sophisticated diagnostic and therapeutic innovations over the years. However, the design of the physical hospital environment has garnered less attention. This may negatively impact a patient's experience and health. In areas of the hospital, such as the emergency department (ED), patients may spend hours, or even days, in a windowless environment. Studies have highlighted the importance of natural light and imagery, as they are essential in providing important stimuli to regulate circadian rhythm and orientation, and to mitigate the onset of certain medical conditions. In hospital locations where standard windows may be infeasible, the use of a virtual window may simulate the benefits of an actual window. In this pilot study, we assessed patient experience and orientation with virtual windows in the ED. We demonstrated that virtual windows are an acceptable technology that may improve patient experience and orientation.

Dominant expression of survival signals of endoplasmic reticulum stress response in Hodgkin lymphoma.

The accumulation of viral proteins in endoplasmic reticulum (ER) may cause ER stress responses and lead to either apoptosis or survival depending on the driving signals. The strong expression of latent membrane protein-1 (LMP1) in Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-positive Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) cells raises the question whether LMP1-induced ER stress response is associated with the characteristic tumor biology in HL. In this study, we investigated the expression of ER stress signals (glucose-regulated protein 78 [GRP78], X-box binding protein 1 [XBP1], activating transcription factor 6 [ATF6], CCAAT enhance-binding protein homologous protein [CHOP] and phospho-apoptosis signal-regulating kinase 1 [pASK1]) on 156 cases of HL. Furthermore, LMP1 transfection on EBV-negative HL cell lines was used to explore the regulation of ER stress signals by EBV-LMP1. Interestingly, we demonstrated that the survival signals of ER stress response (GRP78, 62%; XBP1u [unspliced], 55%; XBP1s [spliced], 38%; ATF6, 91%) were dominantly expressed over the ER death signals (CHOP, 10%; pASK1, 7%) in all histological subtypes of HL with a similar level in both EBV-positive and EBV-negative cases. However, expression of ER signals did not bear prognostic significance. In vitro, LMP1 transfection increased the expression of GRP78 and XBP1, but attenuated the expression of death signals, CHOP and pASK1. These data indicate that EBV-LMP1 may play a role in shifting EBV-infected cells towards the survival pathway in the presence of ER stress in EBV-positive HL cases.

Violence-related behaviours among Malaysian adolescents: a cross sectional survey among secondary school students in Negeri Sembilan.

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of violence-related behaviours among adolescents and the factors associated with it. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This was a cross-sectional school survey conducted on 4500 adolescent students, using a structured questionnaire. Data were collected using the supervised self-administered questionnaire [a modified version of the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance in the Malaysian National Language (Bahasa Malaysia)]. RESULTS: Our study showed that 27.9% of students had been involved in a physical fight, 6.6% had been injured in a fight, 5.9% had carried a weapon, 7.2% had felt unsafe, 18.5% had had their money stolen and 55.0% had had their property stolen. Adolescents who carried weapons to school, smoked, used drugs, felt sad or hopeless and played truant were more likely to be involved in physical fights after adjusting for age, sex, and ethnicity. CONCLUSION: Violence-related behaviours among adolescents, especially involvement in physical fights, are common and are positively associated with certain factors such as smoking, taking drugs, playing truant, feeling sad or hopeless. Interventions designed at targeting adolescent violence should also address these factors and target the high-risk groups. There may be a need to identify and provide services for adolescents who exhibit these factors.

Improvement in High-Grade Osteosarcoma Survival: Results from 202 Patients Treated at a Single Institution in Taiwan.

The aim of this study was to compare survival before and after 2004 and define the prognostic factors for high-grade osteosarcomas beyond those of typical young patients with localized extremity disease. Few studies have reported the long-term treatment outcomes of high-grade osteosarcoma in Taiwan. A total of 202 patients with primary high-grade osteosarcoma who received primary chemotherapy at Taipei Veterans General Hospital between January 1995 and December 2011 were retrospectively evaluated and compared by period (1995-2003 vs 2004-2011). Patients of all ages and tumor sites and those following or not following controlled protocols were included in analysis of demographic, tumor-related, and treatment-related variables and survival. Overall survival and progression-free survival at 5 years were, respectively, 67.7% and 48% for all patients (n = 202), 77.3% and 57.1% for patients without metastasis (n = 157), and 33.9% and 14.8% for patients with metastasis (n = 45). The survival rates of patients treated after 2004 were significantly higher (by 13%-16%) compared with those of patients treated before 2004, with an accompanying 30% increase in histological good response rate (P = .002). Factors significantly contributing to inferior survival in univariate and multivariate analyses were diagnosis before 2004, metastasis at diagnosis, and being a noncandidate for a controlled treatment protocol. By comparison with the regimens used at our institution before 2004, the current results support the effectiveness of the post-2004 regimens, which consisted of substantially reduced cycles of high-dose methotrexate and a higher dosage of ifosfamide per cycle, cisplatin, and doxorubicin, for treating high-grade osteosarcoma in Asian patients.

Ultrasound biomicroscopy of corneal hydrops in Terrien's marginal degeneration.

Terrien's marginal degeneration (TMD) is a rare form of corneal ectasia. Few case reports have documented hydrops of the cornea in patients with TMD. We present the first case known to us of corneal hydrops in TMD where there is stromal edema in addition to the aqueous cystic cavities, and the first case demonstrating ultrastructural anatomy of this entity by ultrasound biomicroscopy.

Factors relating to adolescent suicidal behavior: a cross-sectional Malaysian school survey.

PURPOSE: This study was undertaken to examine factors relating to adolescent suicide behavior. METHOD: This was a cross-sectional school survey of 4,500 adolescent students based on a structured questionnaire. Data were collected using the supervised self-administered questionnaire (modified version of the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance in the Malaysian National Language, Bahasa Malaysia). RESULTS: Seven percent (312 of 4,454) of the adolescent students had seriously considered attempting suicide. Among the adolescents, 4.6% had attempted suicide at least once during the 12 months preceding the survey. Female adolescents were more likely to put their suicidal thoughts into suicidal action than were male adolescents. Malay and Indian people are more likely than the Chinese to respond, "Felt sad and hopeless." However, Malay adolescents had the lowest rate of attempted suicide. Based on multiple logistic regression, factors significantly related to urban adolescents' suicide behavior are "Felt sad or hopeless," "Number of days felt unsafe to go to school," "Riding with a driver who had been drinking alcohol," "Physical fight," and "Number of days absent from school." In comparison, factors relating to rural adolescents' suicide behavior are "Felt sad or hopeless," "Physical fight," "Physical fight resulting in injury," and "Drive a vehicle after drinking alcohol." CONCLUSION: Adolescent suicide behavior should be viewed as a serious problem. Measures can be taken to prevent suicide by looking at the factors significantly linked to suicidal behavior among adolescents. Steps can then be taken to identify adolescents who have serious suicidal ideation so that intervention can be taken to reduce the suicidal rate.