Faculty Bibliography

As the cost of healthcare rises, the employers who finance health insurance benefits plans are demanding increased accountability and effectiveness in the management of costly care, such as that delivered in the neonatal intensive care unit. Neonatologists are under increased scrutiny by third-party payors. They should also expect to see closer case management, downgraded reimbursement according to standardized tools for assessing level of care, and closer evaluation of reimbursement for novel and expensive drugs and technologies. Neonatologists need to become more knowledgeable about how the current crisis in cost for employer-funded health plans may affect their practice.

Historically, most of the acute complications of prematurity have occurred in the neonatal intensive care unit, not in the Emergency Department (ED). It is becoming increasingly common, however, for premature infants to be discharged from the hospital before they have reached a postconceptual age of 40 weeks. Such infants remain at relatively increased risk for a variety of complications of prematurity and may present to the ED in their first month of life. To highlight its symptomatology and review its management, we present the case of an infant presenting back to the ED with coffee ground emesis and fulminant necrotizing enterocolitis.

OBJECTIVE: This pilot study was designed to assess the impact of topical lidocaine and prilocaine cream on the pain response of very low birth weight infants undergoing percutaneous central venous line insertion. STUDY DESIGN: Infants were randomly assigned to receive 1 to 1.25 gm of the topical anesthetic or to receive zinc oxide placebo 1 hour before line insertion. Investigators blinded to treatment group assignment obtained serial measurements of heart rate, respiratory rate, systolic blood pressure, and oxygen saturation by pulse oximetry. Toxicity from lidocaine was assessed by clinical parameters, and toxic effects from prilocaine were assessed by methemoglobin levels (normal range 0% to 4%). RESULTS: Hearts rates increased significantly during line insertion in controls (n = 6) but not in treated patients (n = 7). Respiratory rates and blood pressure values increased significantly during line insertion in both groups. Oxygen saturation did not change significantly in either group. The percent of increase in heart and respiratory rates from baseline was attenuated in the treated patients compared with controls. Methemoglobin levels were 0.3% to 2.0% for the treated group and 0.3% to 0.7% for controls. CONCLUSION: The topical lidocaine and prilocaine cream application attenuated the lability of vital signs during line insertion in very low birth weight infants, with no evidence of toxicity.

We have recently developed an open-chest sheep model to monitor and study the effects of major orthopedic procedures on pulmonary physiology. In this pilot study, we focused on reamed intramedullary femoral nailing in animals without pulmonary injury. Details of the model are described herein. The control group consisted of sheep that underwent thoracotomy and invasive monitoring only, while the study group also underwent femoral osteotomy, reaming, and intramedullary nailing. Baseline, postthoracotomy, and post-reaming/nailing values were recorded for mean pulmonary arterial pressure, central venous pressure, left arterial pressure, dynamic compliance, arterial blood gas, mixed venous O2, cardiac index, and mean arterial pressure so that hemodynamic and oxygen transport data could be calculated. Postprocedure values were recorded at hourly intervals for 4 h. A physiologically stable, reproducible model was created. No statistically significant differences were found between the control and experimental groups, indicating no adverse effect of femoral reaming/nailing. In one animal, using echocardiography, pulmonary embolization was documented while reaming and inserting the intramedullary nail. Reamed femoral intramedullary nailing is not detrimental to sheep with otherwise normal lungs. This finding suggests that femoral reaming and nailing in trauma patients without associated pulmonary injuries and otherwise normal lungs may be carried out without risk of inducing significant respiratory complications.

Nonphysician providers (NPP) increasingly fill roles traditionally performed by housestaff. Downsizing of a pediatric residency program prompted phased replacement of housestaff in a 26-bed neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Subsidized education for neonatal nurse-practitioners, recruitment of physician assistants, and NPP leadership took place over 18 months, at which time all housestaff functions were assumed by NPP. Cost to establish the program, impact on hospital revenue under New York's prospective reimbursement system, and quality of care were evaluated. The net startup cost for the NPP program was $441,000 ($722,000 for education, salaries, staff replacement, and recruitment, partially offset by a New York State workforce demonstration project grant). Ongoing costs of the program are $1.2 million/yr (including salaries, off-hours medical backup, recruitment, administrative overhead, and loss of indirect and direct medical education reimbursement, partially offset by recaptured housestaff salaries and ancillary expense reductions). Access to care was maintained. Quality of care was assessed during the last 6 months of housestaff and the first 6 months of full NPP staffing, revealing similar weight-specific survival, and improvement in documentation and compliance with immunization and blood utilization guidelines during the NPP period. NPP are expensive in comparison to housestaff. Revenue is minimally adversely affected, but access to NICU services and quality of care was preserved and in some cases enhanced with NPP. In the context of graduate medical education reform, staffing problems such as ours will be encountered increasingly in inpatient subspecialty settings.

Radiologic evaluation is valuable for confirmation of congenital syphilis. Bony abnormalities are thought to be secondary to active disease or a growth response of bone to systemic illness. Anteroposterior lower extremity radiographs of 85 euthyroid term infants (> or = 38 weeks' gestation; mean weight, 3244 gm; range, 1940-4380 gm) with presumptive congenital syphilis were evaluated for the presence of the distal femoral and proximal tibial secondary ossification centers and other bony abnormalities. Both proximal tibial and distal femoral ossification centers were absent in only 9 of 85 infants with syphilis; the proximal tibial center was absent in 26 of 85 (total 30.6%; 95% confidence limits 0.2 to 0.4). This observation is significant at the p < 0.01 level by chi-square analysis with use of historical controls. Periosteal new bone formation was seen in 2 of 85 infants. Metaphyseal lucent bands were present in 21 of 85 infants, 8 of whom also had absent lower extremity ossification centers. For comparison we reviewed lower extremity radiographs from 12 term infants without congenital syphilis. Ossification centers were absent in one growth-retarded infant, and metaphyseal lucent bands were found in one infant. Although standard texts report nearly universal ossification of the distal femoral epiphysis at term, we observed delayed skeletal maturation in 30.1% of term infants with congenital syphilis. We speculate that this delay may be reflective of systemic infection.

Mean erythropoietin levels were somewhat higher in premature infants receiving theophylline than in untreated infants with a comparable degree of anemia. These results differ from those in adults and may reflect the oxygenation of the theophylline-treated patients or the developmental regulation of erythropoietin production in response to adenosine receptor antagonists.