Technological Resources and Personnel Costs Required to Implement an Automated Alert System for Primary Care Physicians When Patients Transition from Hospitals to Home

Background With the adoption of electronic medical records by medical group practices, there are opportunities to improve the quality of care for patients discharged from hospitals. However, there is little guidance for medical groups outside of integrated hospital systems to automate the flow of patient information during transitions in care. Objective To describe the technological resources, expertise and time needed to develop an automated system providing information to primary care physicians when their patients transition from hospitals to home. Development Within a medical group practice, we developed an automated alert system that provides notification of discharges, reminders of the need for follow-up visits, drugs added during in-patient stays, and recommendations for laboratory monitoring of high risk drugs. We tracked components of the information system required and the time spent by team members. We used US national averages of hourly wages to estimate personnel costs. Application Critical components of the information system are notifications of hospital discharges through an admission, discharge and transfer registration (ADT) interface, linkage to the practice’s scheduling system, access to information on pharmacy dispensing and lab tests, and an interface engine. Total personnel cost was $76,314. Nearly half (47%) was for 614 hours by physicians who developed content, provided overall project management, and reviewed alerts to ensure that only “actionable” alerts would be sent. Conclusion Implementing a system to provide information about patient transitions requires strong internal informatics expertise, cooperation between facilities and ambulatory providers, development of electronic linkages, and extensive commitment of physician time

Intervention to Reduce Adverse Outcomes among Older Adults Discharged from Skilled Nursing Facilities to Home

Background: Older adults may be at risk for adverse outcomes after discharge from skilled nursing facilities (SNF), but little research has focused on this transition. Objective: To assess the impact of an alert system on the rates of adverse outcomes among older adults discharged from SNFs to home. Methods: Within a multispecialty group practice, we tracked 30-day re-hospitalizations after SNF discharges during an intervention that provided discharge alerts to primary care physicians. We compared them to discharges from the pre-intervention period matched on age, gender and SNF. For the first 100 intervention discharges and their matches, we performed chart reviews to identify adverse drug events (ADEs). Multivariate analyses controlled for age, gender and intervention status. Results: We matched 313 intervention SNF discharges to 313 previous discharges. There was a slight reduction in the rate of 30-day re-hospitalization (30% vs. 31%) adjusted. Within the ADE study, 30% of the discharges during the intervention period and 30% of matched discharges had ADEs within 45 days. Among the 83 ADEs identified, 28% were deemed preventable; 69% resulted in symptom duration more than one day; 69% occurred within the first 14 days after discharge. This was a highly vulnerable population: mean age 82.5 (standard deviation (SD) 6.7); mean number of prescribed medications 11.9 (SD 8); 17% had Charlson Comorbidity Scores of ≥4. Common clinical conditions included myocardial infarction (24%), heart failure (22%), COPD (23%), and major depression (28%). Patients with scores of ≥4 were more likely to experience an ADE than those with lower scores (adjusted OR 2.5 (CI 1.2, 5.5), RD 0.21). Conclusion: Simply providing alerts when these vulnerable patients are discharged from SNFs is not sufficient to lower rates of adverse outcomes. Further research is required to track trajectories and identify additional points for interventions

Reducing Rehospitalizations through Automated Alerts to Primary Care Providers and Staff When Older Patients are Discharged from the Hospital: A Randomized Trial

Background: Inadequate continuity of care places older patients at very high risk during transitions from the hospital to ambulatory setting. Methods: We conducted a randomized controlled trial of an HIT-based transitional care intervention in patients aged 65 and older discharged from hospital to home. All patients were senior plan members of a Massachusetts-based health plan, and cared for by a multispecialty medical group using the EpicCare Ambulatory Medical Record. In addition to notifying providers about the patient’s recent transition, the system provided information about new drugs added during the inpatient stay, warnings about drug-drug interactions, recommendations for dose changes and laboratory monitoring of high-risk medications, and reminded the primary care provider’s support staff to schedule a post-hospitalization office visit. Randomization occurred at the time of hospital discharge during a one-year intervention period beginning in August 2010. Alerts were automatically delivered to the provider and staff in-basket within the EMR. The primary outcomes were: 1) having an outpatient office visit with the primary care provider within 30 days following discharge; and 2) having a rehospitalization within 30 days following discharge. Results: The study included 3667 discharges of which 1877 discharges were randomly assigned to the intervention arm. Forty-nine percent of discharges in the intervention arm were followed by office visits with the primary care provider within 30 days, compared to 51% in the comparison arm (RR 0.96, 95% CI 0.90, 1.03). Eighteen percent of discharges in the intervention arm were followed by a rehospitalization within 30 days compared to 20% in the comparison arm (RR 0.92, 95% CI 0.80, 1.05). Conclusions: This HIT-based intervention was not effective in increasing the percentage of hospital discharges of older patients that were followed by timely office visits to primary care providers or reducing the percentage with rehospitalization

Adverse Drug Events Post-Hospital Discharge in Older Patients: Types, Severity, and Involvement of Beers Criteria Medications

Objective: To characterize adverse drug events (ADEs) occurring within the high-risk 45-day period post-hospitalization in older adults. Design: Clinical pharmacists reviewed the ambulatory records of 1000 consecutive discharges. Setting: A large multispecialty group practice closely aligned with a Massachusetts-based health plan. Participants: Hospitalized patients aged 65 years and older who were discharged to home. Measurements: Possible drug-related incidents occurring during the 45-day period post-hospitalization were identified and presented to a pair of physician-reviewers who classified incidents as to whether an ADE was present, whether the event was preventable, and the severity of the event. Medications implicated in ADEs were further characterized according to their inclusion in the 2012 Beers Criteria for Potentially Inappropriate Medication Use in Older Adults. Results: At least one ADE was identified during the 45-day period in 18.7% (187) of the 1000 discharges. Of the 242 ADEs identified, 35% (n=84) were deemed preventable, of which 32% (n=27) were characterized as serious, and 5% (n=4) as life threatening. Over half of all ADEs occurred within the first 14 days post-hospitalization. The percentage of ADEs in which Beers Criteria medications were implicated was 16.5% (n=40). Beers Criteria medications with both a high quality of evidence and strong strength of recommendation were implicated in 6.6% (n=16) of the ADEs. Conclusion: ADEs are common and often preventable among older adults following hospital discharge, underscoring the need to address medication safety during this high-risk period in this vulnerable population. Beers Criteria medications played a small role in these events suggesting that efforts to improve the quality and safety of medication use during this critical transition period must extend beyond a singular focus on Beers criteria medications

Perioperative Propranolol Against Dental Anxiety: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Promising results from a trauma reactivation study on post-traumatic stress disorder suggest that propranolol is capable of attenuating symptoms of traumatically induced mental disorders by blocking memory reconsolidation. Methods: A randomized, parallel, placebo-controlled, quadruple-blind trial was designed to determine the effectiveness of perioperative propranolol during exposure to dental extractions in reducing dental anxiety in patients with dental anxiety or dental phobia. Between November 2014 and December 2018, 52 patients with high levels of fear in anticipation of dental extractions who were referred to a department of oral and maxillofacial surgery for at least two tooth and/or molar removals with 1 month in between were included. On the first visit participants received either 120 mg of perioperative oral propranolol (n = 19) or placebo (n = 17), and a core fear memory was reactivated 1 h preoperatively. The primary outcome was change in severity of dental anxiety from baseline to 1-month follow-up, as indexed by the short version of the dental anxiety inventory (S-DAI). Secondary outcome measures were change in intra-operative state anxiety and specific phobia diagnoses. Results: Linear mixed model (LMM) yielded no statistically significant difference in change of dental trait anxiety from baseline to 1-month follow-up between propranolol and placebo groups (Cohen's d = 0.23). S-DAI scores decreased in both study arms from baseline to follow-up (propranolol arm: from 32.1 [SD = 7.3] to 29.1 [SD = 8.8]; placebo arm: from 31.6 [SD = 7.5] to 27.1 [SD = 6.5]). Also, administering propranolol was not associated with a significant difference in change of intra-operative state anxiety or phobia diagnoses between groups over time. Conclusions: The results do not concur with earlier findings regarding post-traumatic stress disorder, and suggest that individuals with traumatically induced fears or phobias do not benefit from the application of perioperative propranolol

Depression in medical students: insights from a longitudinal study

Background: Factors associated with depression of medical students are poorly understood. The purpose of this study is to determine the prevalence of depression in medical students, its change during the course, if depression persists for affected students, what are the factors associated with depression and how these factors change over time. Methods: A prospective, longitudinal observational study was conducted at the Medical School of the University of Minho, Portugal, between academic years 2009-2010 to 2012-2013. We included students who maintained their participation by annually completing a questionnaire including Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Anxiety and burnout were assessed using the State Trait Anxiety Inventory and Maslach Burnout Inventory. Surveys on socio-demographic variables were applied to evaluate potential predictors, personal and academic characteristics and perceived difficulties. ANOVA with multiple comparisons were used to compare means of BDI score. The medical students were organized into subgroups by K-means cluster analyses. ANOVA mixed-design repeated measurement was performed to assess a possible interaction between variables associated with depression. Results: The response rate was 84, 92, 88 and 81% for academic years 2009-2010, 2010-2011,2011-2012 and 2012/2013, respectively. Two hundred thirty-eight medical students were evaluated longitudinally. For depression the prevalence ranged from 21.5 to 12.7% (academic years 2009/2010 and 2012/2013). BDI scores decreased during medical school. 19.7% of students recorded sustained high BDI over time. These students had high levels of trait-anxiety and choose medicine for anticipated income and prestige, reported more relationship issues, cynicism, and decreased satisfaction with social activities. Students with high BDI scores at initial evaluation with low levels of trait-anxiety and a primary interest in medicine as a career tended to improve their mood and reported reduced burnout, low perceived learning problems and increased satisfaction with social activities at last evaluation. No difference was detected between men and women in the median BDI score over time. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that personal factors (anxiety traits, medicine choice factors, relationship patterns and academic burnout) are relevant for persistence of high levels of BDI during medical training. Medical schools need to identity students who experience depression and support then, as early as possible, particularly when depression has been present over time.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio