November 1, 2023
Life as a health equity officer
A recent survey of hospitals' health equity officers highlighted challenges they face, including how to get clinicians on board.
Spinal epidural abscess
A patient presented with acute-on-chronic lumbosacral back pain and new-onset urinary incontinence.
Systemic corticosteroids improved outcomes in CAP, meta-analysis finds
Patients hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) had significantly lower risk of 30-day all-cause mortality or acute respiratory distress syndrome and shorter time to clinical stability if they were randomized to systemic corticosteroids as adjunctive therapy.
Unit-based teamwork intervention for nurses, hospitalists did not improve patient care
An intervention focused on improving interprofessional communication on hospital units did not reduce adverse events or length of stay but did improve nurses' ratings of the teamwork climate.
Latest COVID-19 trials show convalescent plasma worked, vitamin C did not
A trial of high-titer convalescent plasma in COVID-19 patients recently put on mechanical ventilation found an improvement in mortality, while another study showed that IV vitamin C did not help and might have harmed patients.
ED visits after discharge to SNF cost Medicare $24 million in 2019
Sixteen percent of Medicare patients who were discharged to a skilled nursing facility (SNF) came back to the ED within two weeks, and a quarter of those visits resulted in discharge back to the SNF the same day.