Raman Khanna

Tablet computers for hospitalized patients: A pilot study to improve inpatient engagement

Inadequate patient engagement in hospital care inhibits high-quality care and successful transitions to home. Tablet computers may provide opportunities to engage patients, particularly during inactive times between provider visits, tests, and treatments, by providing interactive health education modules as well as access to their personal health record (PHR). We conducted a pilot project to explore inpatient satisfaction with bedside tablets and barriers to usability. Additionally, we evaluated use of these devices to deliver 2 specific Web-based programs: (1) an interactive video to improve inpatient education about hospital safety, and (2) PHR access to promote inpatient engagement in discharge planning. We enrolled 30 patients; 17 (60%) were aged 40 years or older, 17 (60%) were women, 17 (60%) owned smartphones, and 6 (22%) owned tablet computers. Twenty-seven (90%) reported high overall satisfaction with the device, and 26 (87%) required ≤ 30 minutes for basic orientation (70% required ≤ 15 minutes). Twenty-five (83%) independently completed an interactive educational module on hospital patient safety. Twenty-one (70%) accessed their personal health record (PHR) to view their medication list, verify scheduled appointments, or send a message to their primary care physician. Next steps include education on high-risk medications, assessment of discharge barriers, and training clinical staff (such as respiratory therapists, registered nurses, or nurse practitioners) to deliver tablet interventions.

Computerized Physician Order Entry Promise, Perils, and Experience

Computerized physician order entry (CPOE) has been promoted as an important component of patient safety, quality improvement, and modernization of medical practice. In practice, however, CPOE affects health care delivery in complex ways, with benefits as well as risks. Every implementation of CPOE is associated with both generally recognized and unique local factors that can facilitate or confound its rollout, and neurohospitalists will often be at the forefront of such rollouts. In this article, we review the literature on CPOE, beginning with definitions and proceeding to comparisons to the standard of care. We then proceed to discuss clinical decision support systems, negative aspects of CPOE, and cultural context of CPOE implementation. Before concluding, we follow the experiences of a Chief Medical Information Officer and neurohospitalist who rolled out a CPOE system at his own health care organization and managed the resulting workflow changes and setbacks.

The association between night or weekend admission and hospitalization‐relevant patient outcomes

INTRODUCTION Nights and weekends represent a potentially high-risk time for hospitalized patients. Data regarding night or weekend admission and its impact on outcomes is limited. We studied the association between night or weekend admission and outcomes. METHODS We reviewed 857 admissions to the general medicine services from the emergency department (ED) at our tertiary care hospital for demographic information, time and day of admission, and hospitalization-relevant outcomes (length of stay [LOS], hospital charges, intensive care unit [ICU] transfer during hospitalization, repeat ED visit within 30 days, readmission within 30 days, and poor outcome [ICU transfer, cardiac arrest, or death] within the first 24 hours of admission). Outcomes were compared between groups using univariate and multivariate modeling. RESULTS Complete data for analysis were available for 824 patients. A total of 58% of patients were admitted at night and 22% were admitted during the weekend. Patients admitted at night as compared to those admitted during the day had similar a LOS (4.1 vs. 4.3, P = 0.38), hospital charges (25,200 vs. 27,500, P = 0.17), ICU transfer during hospitalization (3% vs. 6%, P = 0.06), 30 day repeat ED visit (22% vs. 20%, P = 0.42), 30 day readmission (20% vs. 17%, P = 0.23), and poor outcomes within 24 hours of admission (1% vs. 2%, P = 0.15). Patients admitted during the weekend as compared to those admitted during the week had lower hospital charges and lower likelihood of an ICU transfer but were otherwise similar. CONCLUSION Night or weekend admission was not associated with worse hospitalization-relevant outcomes at our tertiary care hospital.

Unintended Consequences of a Standard Admission Order Set on Venous Thromboembolism Prophylaxis and Patient Outcomes

ABSTRACTBACKGROUNDStandard order sets often increase the use of desirable interventions for patients likely to benefit from them. Whether such order sets also increase misuse of these interventions in patients potentially harmed by them is unknown. We measured the association between a paper-based standard admission order set with a venous thromboembolism pharmacoprophylaxis (VTEP) module and use of VTEP for patients likely to benefit from it as well as patients with unclear benefit or potential harm from it.METHODSWe conducted a retrospective cohort study using administrative and pharmacy charge data of patients admitted between 1 July 2005 and 31 December 2008 to two medical and three surgical services that implemented a standard admission order set in August 2006. The primary outcome was use of VTEP in patients with likely benefit, unclear benefit, and potential harm from VTEP prior to and following order set implementation.KEY RESULTSA total of 8,429 patients (32%) were admitted prior to and 17,635 (68%) following order set implementation. There was a small unadjusted rise in overall VTEP use after implementation (51% to 58%, p < 0.001). In multivariable models with interrupted time series analysis, patients with potential harm from VTEP had the largest increase in VTEP use at the time of implementation [adjusted odds ratio = 1.58; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.12–2.22]. The increased likelihood of receiving VTEP in this subgroup gradually returned to baseline (adjusted odds ratio per month = 0.98; 95% CI, 0.96–0.99).CONCLUSIONSImplementation of a standard admission order set transiently increased VTEP in patients with potential harm from it. Order set and guideline success should be judged based on the degree to which they successfully target patients likely to benefit from the intervention without inadvertently targeting patients potentially harmed.

Reimagining Electronic Clinical Communication in the Post-Pager, Smartphone Era.

Communication is the lifeblood of clinical medicine, yet most health care practitioners still use pagers, communication tools developed a half-century ago. Recently, there is increased interest in shifting to smartphone-based communication modalities. Many clinicians use short message service texts directly from their cell phones,1 often in innovative ways,2 and others have supported using secure text messaging applications to avoid violations to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.3,4

Nebs no more after 24: a pilot program to improve the use of appropriate respiratory therapies.

“Nebs No More After 24”: A Pilot Program to Improve the Use of Appropriate Respiratory Therapies Nebulized bronchodilator therapies (“nebs”) are commonly used in the inpatient setting for the treatment of obstructive pulmonary symptoms. Nebs have equal efficacy when compared with metered-dose inhalers (MDIs) for patients with obstructive pulmonary symptoms1-3 but are significantly more costly because they need to be directly administered by a respiratory therapist (RT). Unnecessary neb administration in the hospital also represents a missed opportunity to educate inpatients on proper use of their MDIs. Press et al4 found that while 86% of patients incorrectly administered their prescribed MDI, all were able to achieve mastery following instruction. We created a program to decrease inappropriate neb administration, improve inpatient MDI teaching, and increase resident physician knowledge of appropriate respiratory therapies.

Performance of an online translation tool when applied to patient educational material

BACKGROUND Language barriers may prevent clinicians from tailoring patient educational material to the needs of individuals with limited English proficiency. Online translation tools could fill this gap, but their accuracy is unknown. We evaluated the accuracy of an online translation tool for patient educational material. METHODS We selected 45 sentences from a pamphlet available in both English and Spanish, and translated it into Spanish using GoogleTranslate™ (GT). Three bilingual Spanish speakers then performed a blinded evaluation on these 45 sentences, comparing GT-translated sentences to those translated professionally, along four domains: fluency (grammatical correctness), adequacy (information preservation), meaning (connotation maintenance), and severity (perceived dangerousness of an error if present). In addition, evaluators indicated whether they had a preference for either the GT-translated or professionally translated sentences. RESULTS The GT-translated sentences had significantly lower fluency scores compared to the professional translation (3.4 vs. 4.7, P < 0.001), but similar adequacy (4.2 vs. 4.5, P = 0.19) and meaning (4.5 vs. 4.8, P = 0.29) scores. The GT-translated sentences were more likely to have any error (39% vs. 22%, P = 0.05), but not statistically more likely to have a severe error (4% vs. 2%, P = 0.61). Evaluators preferred the professional translation for complex sentences, but not for simple ones. DISCUSSION When applied to patient educational material, GT performed comparably to professional human translation in terms of preserving information and meaning, though it was slightly worse in preserving grammar. In situations where professional human translations are unavailable or impractical, online translation may someday fill an important niche.

An Automated Telephone Nutrition Support System for Spanish-Speaking Patients With Diabetes

Background: In the United States, Spanish-speaking patients with diabetes often receive inadequate dietary counseling. Providing language and culture-concordant dietary counseling on an ongoing basis is critical to diabetes self-care. Objective: To determine if automated telephone nutrition support (ATNS) counseling could help patients improve glycemic control by duplicating a successful pilot in Mexico in a Spanish-speaking population in Oakland, California. Design: A prospective randomized open-label trial with blinded endpoint assessment (PROBE) was performed. Participants: The participants were seventy-five adult patients with diabetes receiving care at a federally qualified health center in Oakland, California. Interventions: ATNS, a computerized system that dialed patients on their phones, prompted them in Spanish to enter (via keypad) portions consumed in the prior 24 hours of various cultural-specific dietary items, and then provided dietary feedback based on proportion of high versus low glycemic index foods consumed. The control group received the same ATNS phone calls 14 weeks after enrollment. Main Measures: The primary outcome was hemoglobin A1c % (A1c) 12 weeks following enrollment. Key Results: Participants had no significant improvement in A1c (–0.3% in the control arm, –0.1% in the intervention arm, P = .41 for any difference) or any secondary parameters. Conclusions: In our study, an ATNS system did not improve diabetes control in a Spanish-speaking population in Oakland.

Predictive value of the present-on-admission indicator for hospital-acquired venous thromboembolism

Background:Hospital-acquired venous thromboembolic (HA-VTE) events are an important, preventable cause of morbidity and death, but accurately identifying HA-VTE events requires labor-intensive chart review. Administrative diagnosis codes and their associated “present-on-admission” (POA) indicator might allow automated identification of HA-VTE events, but only if VTE codes are accurately flagged “not present-on-admission” (POA=N). New codes were introduced in 2009 to improve accuracy. Methods:We identified all medical patients with at least 1 VTE “other” discharge diagnosis code from 5 academic medical centers over a 24-month period. We then sampled, within each center, patients with VTE codes flagged POA=N or POA=U (insufficient documentation) and POA=Y or POA=W (timing clinically uncertain) and abstracted each chart to clarify VTE timing. All events that were not clearly POA were classified as HA-VTE. We then calculated predictive values of the POA=N/U flags for HA-VTE and the POA=Y/W flags for non-HA-VTE. Results:Among 2070 cases with at least 1 “other” VTE code, we found 339 codes flagged POA=N/U and 1941 flagged POA=Y/W. Among 275 POA=N/U abstracted codes, 75.6% (95% CI, 70.1%–80.6%) were HA-VTE; among 291 POA=Y/W abstracted events, 73.5% (95% CI, 68.0%–78.5%) were non-HA-VTE. Extrapolating from this sample, we estimated that 59% of actual HA-VTE codes were incorrectly flagged POA=Y/W. POA indicator predictive values did not improve after new codes were introduced in 2009. Conclusions:The predictive value of VTE events flagged POA=N/U for HA-VTE was 75%. However, sole reliance on this flag may substantially underestimate the incidence of HA-VTE.

Characterizing the Source of Text in Electronic Health Record Progress Notes

Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: All authors. Statistical analysis: Streed, McCarthy. Obtained funding: Haas. Administrative, technical, or material support: McCarthy, Haas. Supervision: Haas. Conflict of Interest Disclosures: None reported. 1. National Institutes of Health Sexual and Gender Minority Research Coordinating Committee. NIH FY 2016-2020 Strategic Plan to Advance Research on the Health and Well-being of Sexual and Gender Minorities. Washington, DC: National Institutes of Health; 2015.