Elizabeth M. Goldberg

New Approaches to Evaluating and Monitoring Blood Pressure.

Digital health innovations for hypertension include cuffless blood pressure sensors, wireless smartphone-enabled upper arm blood pressure monitors, mobile applications, and remote monitoring technologies. Wearable trackers have drawn interest from medical professionals and patients alike. They have the potential to improve hypertension control and medication adherence through easier logging of repeated blood pressure measurements, better connectivity with health-care providers, and medication reminder alerts. With increasing emphasis on home and ambulatory blood pressure monitoring to confirm hypertension prior to treatment, such devices also can help improve the diagnostic landscape. However, privacy, accuracy, and cost concerns have prevented widespread clinical uptake. To foster implementation, device designers and clinical researchers should collaborate on development of rigorous clinical trials that test cardiovascular outcomes associated with emerging technologies. We review the current literature on mobile health technologies and novel diagnostic and management protocols and make recommendations on how to incorporate these innovations into practice.

Oxygen Saturation Can Predict Pediatric Pneumonia in a Resource-Limited Setting

BACKGROUND The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends using age-specific respiratory rates for diagnosing pneumonia in children. Past studies have evaluated the WHO criteria with mixed results. OBJECTIVE We examined the accuracy of clinical and laboratory factors for diagnosing pediatric pneumonia in resource-limited settings. METHODS We conducted a retrospective chart review of children under 5 years of age presenting with respiratory complaints to three rural hospitals in Rwanda who had received a chest radiograph. Data were collected on the presence or absence of 31 historical, clinical, and laboratory signs. Chest radiographs were interpreted by pediatric radiologists as the gold standard for diagnosing pneumonia. Overall correlation and test characteristics were calculated for each categorical variable as compared to the gold standard. For continuous variables, we created receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves to determine their accuracy for predicting pneumonia. RESULTS Between May 2011 and April 2012, data were collected from 147 charts of children with respiratory complaints. Approximately 58% of our sample had radiologist-diagnosed pneumonia. Of the categorical variables, a negative blood smear for malaria (χ(2) = 6.21, p = 0.013) and the absence of history of asthma (χ(2) = 4.48, p = 0.034) were statistically associated with pneumonia. Of the continuous variables, only oxygen saturation had a statistically significant area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.675 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.581-0.769 and p = 0.001). Respiratory rate had an AUC of 0.528 (95% CI 0.428-0.627 and p = 0.588). CONCLUSION Oxygen saturation was the best clinical predictor for pediatric pneumonia and should be further studied in a prospective sample of children with respiratory symptoms in a resource-limited setting.

The Pediatric Asthma Control and Communication Instrument for the Emergency Department (PACCI-ED) improves physician assessment of asthma morbidity in pediatric emergency department patients

Abstract Objectives: To determine whether the Pediatric Asthma Control and Communication Instrument for the Emergency Department (PACCI-ED), a 12-item questionnaire, can help ED attendings accurately assess a patient’s asthma control and morbidity. Methods: This was a randomized-controlled trial performed at an urban pediatric ED of children aged 1–17 years presenting with an asthma exacerbation. Parents answered PACCI-ED questions about their children’s asthma. Attendings were randomized to view responses to the PACCI-ED (intervention group) or to be blinded to the completed PACCI-ED (control group). The two groups were compared on their empirical clinical assessment of: (1) chronic asthma control categories, (2) asthma trajectory (stable, worsening or improving), (3) patient adherence to controller medications, and (4) burden of disease for the patient’s family. The validated PACCI algorithm was used as the criterion standard for these four outcomes. Accuracy of clinical assessment was compared between intervention and control groups using chi-squared tests and an intention-to-treat approach. Results: Seventeen ED attendings were enrolled in the study and 77 children visits were included in the analysis. There were no significant differences between the intervention and the control groups for child’s gender, age, race, and asthma characteristics. Intervention group attendings were more accurate than control group attendings in assessing the category of chronic asthma control (43% versus 19%; p = 0.03), disease trajectory (72% versus 45%; p = 0.02), and the disease burden for families (74% versus 35%; p = 0.001) over the past 12 months. There was a trend towards more accuracy of intervention versus control attendings for estimating patient adherence to controller medications (72% versus 48%; p = 0.06). Conclusions: The PACCI-ED improves the assessment of asthma control, trajectory, and burden by ED attendings, and may help assessment of asthma medication adherence and prior asthma exacerbations. The PACCI-ED can be used to improve provider assessment of asthma morbidity during pediatric ED visits for asthma exacerbations, and to identify children who may benefit from interventions to reduce asthma morbidity.

Favorable Risk Selection in Medicare Advantage: Trends in Mortality and Plan Exits Among Nursing Home Beneficiaries:

The 2003 Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) increased payments to Medicare Advantage plans and instituted a new risk-adjustment payment model to reduce plans’ incentives to enroll healthier Medicare beneficiaries and avoid those with higher costs. Whether the MMA reduced risk selection remains debatable. This study uses mortality differences, nursing home utilization, and switch rates to assess whether the MMA successfully decreased risk selection from 2000 to 2012. We found no decrease in the mortality difference or adjusted difference in nursing home use between plan beneficiaries pre- and post the MMA. Among beneficiaries with nursing home use, disenrollment from Medicare Advantage plans declined from 20% to 12%, but it remained 6 times higher than the switch rate from traditional Medicare to Medicare Advantage. These findings suggest that the MMA was not associated with reductions in favorable risk selection, as measured by mortality, nursing home use, and switch rates.

Global emergency medicine

OBJECTIVES The Global Emergency Medicine Literature Review (GEMLR) conducts an annual search of peer-reviewed and grey literature relevant to global emergency medicine (EM) to identify, review, and disseminate the most important new research in this field to a worldwide audience of academics and clinical practitioners. METHODS This year, our search identified 4,818 articles written in six languages. These articles were distributed among 20 reviewers for initial screening based on their relevance to the field of global EM. Two additional reviewers searched and screened the grey literature. A total of 224 articles were deemed appropriate by at least one reviewer and were approved by their editor for formal scoring of overall quality and importance. RESULTS Of the 224 articles that met our predetermined inclusion criteria, 56% were categorized as Emergency Care in Resource-limited Settings, 18% as EM development, and 26% as Disaster and Humanitarian Response. A total of 28 articles received scores of 16 or higher and were selected for formal summary and critique. Inter-rater reliability for two reviewers using our scoring system was good, with an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.625 (95% confidence interval = 0.512 to 0.711). CONCLUSIONS In 2012 there were more disaster and humanitarian response articles than in previous years. As in prior years, the majority of articles addressed the acute management of infectious diseases or the care of vulnerable populations such as children and pregnant women.

Global Emergency Medicine: A Review of the Literature From 2011: GLOBAL EM LITERATURE REVIEW FROM 2011

OBJECTIVES The Global Emergency Medicine Literature Review (GEMLR) conducts an annual search of published and unpublished articles relevant to global emergency medicine (EM) to identify, review, and disseminate the most important research in this field to a wide audience of academics and practitioners. METHODS This year, 7,924 articles written in seven languages were identified by our search. These articles were divided up among 20 reviewers for initial screening based on their relevance to the field of global EM. An additional two reviewers searched the grey literature. A total of 206 articles were deemed appropriate by at least one reviewer and approved by their editor for formal scoring of their overall quality and importance. RESULTS Of the 206 articles that met our predetermined inclusion criteria, 24 articles received scores of 17 or higher and were selected for formal summary and critique. Interrater reliability for our scoring system was good with an interclass correlation coefficient of 0.628 (95% confidence interval = 0.51 to 0.72). CONCLUSIONS Compared to previous reviews, there was a significant increase in the number of articles that were devoted to emergency care in resource-limited settings, with fewer articles related to disaster and humanitarian response. The majority of articles that met our selection criteria were reviews that examined the efficacy of particular treatment regimens for diseases that are primarily seen in low- and middle-income countries.

Survey of Emergency Physician Approaches to Management of Asymptomatic Hypertension

Uncontrolled hypertension (HTN) is commonly encountered in emergency medicine practice, but the optimal approach to management has not been delineated. The objective of this study was to define emergency physician (EP) approaches to management of asymptomatic HTN in various clinical scenarios and assess adherence to the American College of Emergency Physician clinical policies, utilizing an online survey of EPs. A total of 1200 surveys were distributed by e‐mail with completion by 199 participants. The variables associated with a decision to prescribe oral antihypertensive medications were a history of HTN and referral from primary care. Acute blood pressure (BP) reduction using intravenous antihypertensive medications was also more likely with the latter and BP >180/120 mm Hg. Logistic regression revealed association of EP female sex, fewer years in practice, and a high‐volume practice setting with guideline‐concordant therapy. Wide variability exists in EP approaches to patients with asymptomatic HTN. Treatment decisions were impacted by patient history of chronic HTN, referral from primary care providers, and magnitude of BP elevation.

Barriers to emergency physician diagnosis and treatment of uncontrolled chronic hypertension.

Despite recent expansions in health insurance coverage following the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, patients from marginalized groups still face numerous barriers in accessing primary care and often rely on emergency departments (EDs) as their main source of health care [1,2]. EDs are not the ideal setting in which to provide primary care; however, in medically underserved communities, they can play important roles in screening and referring patients with previously undiagnosedmedical conditions [3].Within this context, theAmericanCollege of Emergency Physicians has published clinical policies regarding the appropriate management of asymptomatic hypertension (HTN) [4,5]. Unfortunately, implementation of these and other evidence-based measures to achieve better long-term blood pressure (BP) control for hypertensive ED patients has been inconsistent [6,7]. A previous study identified knowledge deficits, time constraints, and uncertainty regarding ED BP readings as prevalent physician barriers to better ED treatment of asymptomatic HTN [8]. In this study, we surveyed a national sample of emergency physicians on their perceived barriers in establishing an ED diagnosis of HTN and ED treatment of such patients. An online survey was sent to all members of the Emergency Medicine Practice Research Network, a nationally representative sample of board-certified emergency physicians. The composition of the Emergency Medicine Practice Research Network participants closely mirrors the national American College of Emergency Physicians membership in terms of sex, age, years in practice, geographic region, and characteristics. Descriptive statistics were used to quantify the responses. The narrative responses were analyzed for recurrent themes and categorized into discrete domains using a grounded theory methodology. One thousand two hundred surveys were distributed by e-mail in with a response rate of 17% (n = 199). Respondents’ demographic and practice characteristics are described in Table 1 and compared with a national emergency physician workforce assessment [9] and an inventory of EDs by population [10]. Themost common barriers to diagnosis of HTNwere uncertainty regarding the validity of ED BPmeasurements (92%), reluctance to diagnose a condition which cannot be comprehensively managed in the ED setting (29%), concern over secondary loss to the patient such as increased insurance premiums (14%), and concern that this practice may lead to increased use of EDs for primary care (14%). Regarding treatment of HTN, physicians identified diagnostic uncertainty (82%), discomfort with prescribing longterm medications without established follow-up (39%), and liability for medication adverse effects (28%). (See Table 2.) Analysis of free-text comments revealed several recurring themes, which can be interpreted as belonging to one of several domains. Disease-centered topics were the most frequently noted. These were focused on theunreliability of anEDdiagnosis and theperception that chronic diseases can only be managed with long-term follow-up. Physician-centered concerns were legal liability for poor outcomes and adverse medication

Preferred Provider Relationships Between Medicare Advantage Plans and Skilled Nursing Facilities Reduce Switching Out of Plans: An Observational Analysis

Unlike traditional Medicare, Medicare Advantage (MA) plans contract with specific skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). Patients treated in an MA plan’s preferred SNF may benefit from enhanced coordination and have a lower likelihood of switching out of their plan. Using 2011-2014 Medicare enrollment data, the Medicare Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set, and the Minimum Data Set, we examined Medicare enrollees who were newly admitted to SNFs in 2012-2013. We used the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services star rating to distinguish between MA plans and show how SNF concentration experienced by patients varies between patients in plans with different star ratings. We found that highly rated MA plans steer their patients to a smaller number of SNFs, and these patients are less likely to switch out of their plans. Strengthening the MA plan–SNF relationship may lower disenrollment rates for SNF beneficiaries, imparting benefits to both patients and payers.

When More Isn't Better: Visits for Hypertension: Answers to the September 2016 Journal Club Questions

Editor’s Note: You are reading the 53rd installment of Annals of Emergency Medicine Journal Club. This Journal Club refers to the article by Masood published in the September 2016 edition of Annals. Information about Journal Club can be found at http:// www.annemergmed.com/content/journalclub. Readers should recognize that these are suggested answers. We hope they are accurate; we know that they are not comprehensive. There are many other points that could be made about these questions or about the article in general. Questions are rated “novice” ( ), “intermediate” ( ), and “advanced” ( ) so that individuals planning a journal club can assign the right question to the right student. The “novice” rating does not imply that a novice should be able to spontaneously answer the question. “Novice” means we expect that someone with little background should be able to do a bit of reading, formulate an answer, and teach the material to others. Intermediate and advanced questions also will likely require some reading and research, and that reading will be sufficiently difficult that some background in clinical epidemiology will be helpful in understanding the reading and concepts. We are interested in receiving feedback about this feature. Please e-mail journalclub@acep.org with your comments.