Faculty Bibliography
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department:Medicine. General Internal Medicine
recentyears:2
school:SOM
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14543
Catheter First: The Reality of Incident Hemodialysis Patients in the United States [Comment]
PMID: 32734964
ISSN: 2590-0595
CID: 4546562
Implicit Bias in Health Professions: From Recognition to Transformation
Implicit bias recognition and management curricula are offered as an increasingly popular solution to address health disparities and advance equity. Despite growth in the field, approaches to implicit bias instruction are varied and have mixed results. The concept of implicit bias recognition and management is relatively nascent, and discussions related to implicit bias have also evoked critique and controversy. In addition, challenges related to assessment, faculty development, and resistant learners are emerging in the literature. In this context, the authors have reframed implicit bias recognition and management curricula as unique forms of transformative learning that raise critical consciousness in both individuals and clinical learning environments. The authors have proposed transformative learning theory (TLT) as a guide for implementing educational strategies related to implicit bias in health professions. When viewed through the lens of TLT, curricula to recognize and manage implicit biases are positioned as a tool to advance social justice.
PMID: 31977339
ISSN: 1938-808x
CID: 5294552
Systemic autoimmune disease among adults exposed to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack
OBJECTIVE:Autoimmune disease is an emerging condition among persons exposed to the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center (WTC). Components of the dust cloud resulting from the collapse of the WTC have been associated with systemic autoimmune diseases (SAID), as has posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We sought to determine whether dust exposure and PTSD were associated with an increased risk of SAID in a 9/11-exposed cohort. METHODS:Among 43,133 WTC Health Registry enrollees, 2,786 self-reported a post-9/11 SAID. We obtained consent to review medical records to validate SAID diagnoses for 1,041. SAIDs were confirmed by classification criteria, rheumatologist diagnosis, or having been prescribed SAID medication. Controls were enrollees who denied an autoimmune disease diagnosis (n=37,017). We used multivariable log-binomial regression to examine the association between multiple 9/11 exposures and risk of post-9/11 SAID, stratifying by responders and community members. RESULTS:We identified 118 persons with SAID. Rheumatoid arthritis was most frequent (n=71), followed by SjÓ§gren's syndrome (n=22), systemic lupus erythematosus (n=20), myositis (n=9), mixed connective tissue disease (n=7), and scleroderma (n=4). Among 9/11 responders, those with intense dust cloud exposure had almost twice the risk of SAID (adjusted risk ratio =1.86, 95% CI=1.02-3.40). Community members with PTSD had a nearly three-fold increased risk of SAID. CONCLUSION/CONCLUSIONS:Intense dust cloud exposure among responders and PTSD among community members were associated with a statistically significant increased risk of new-onset SAID. Clinicians treating 9/11 survivors should be aware of the potential increased risk of SAID in this population.
PMID: 31762219
ISSN: 2326-5205
CID: 4215592
A Randomized Controlled Trial of TENS for Movement-Evoked Pain in Women with Fibromyalgia
OBJECTIVE:Fibromyalgia (FM) is characterized by pain and fatigue, particularly during physical activity. Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) activates endogenous pain inhibitory mechanisms. We evaluated if using TENS during activity would improve movement-evoked pain and other patient-reported outcomes in women with FM. METHODS:Participants were randomly assigned to receive active-TENS (n=103), placebo-TENS (n=99) or no-TENS (n=99) and instructed to use it at home 2h/day during activity for 4- weeks. TENS was applied to the lumbar and cervicothoracic regions using a modulated frequency (2-125Hz) at the highest tolerable intensity. Participants rated movement-evoked pain (primary outcome) and fatigue on an 11-point scale before and during application of TENS. Primary and secondary patient-reported outcomes were assessed at randomization and 4weeks. RESULTS:After 4-weeks, the active-TENS group reported a greater reduction in movement-evoked pain and fatigue than placebo-TENS (Pain, Group mean difference(95% CI): -1.0(-1.8, -0.2), p=0.008; Fatigue: -1.4(-2.4, -0.4), p=0.001) and no-TENS groups (Pain: -1.8(-2.6. -1.0), p<0.0001; Fatigue: -1.9(-2.9, -0.9), p=<0.0001). A greater percentage of the active-TENS group reported improvement on the global impression of change when compared to placebo-TENS (70% vs. 31%, p<0.0001) and no-TENS (9%, p<0.0001). There were no TENS-related serious adverse events and less than 5% of participants experienced minor adverse events from TENS. CONCLUSION/CONCLUSIONS:Among women with FM and stable medication, 4-weeks of active-TENS use compared with placebo-TENS or no-TENS resulted in a significant improvement in movement-evoked pain and other clinical outcomes. Further research is needed to examine effectiveness in a real world, pragmatic setting to establish clinical importance of these findings.
PMID: 31738014
ISSN: 2326-5205
CID: 4215282
Local Anesthetic Injection Resolves Movement Pain, Motor Dysfunction, and Pain Catastrophizing in Individuals With Chronic Achilles Tendinopathy, a Non-Randomized Clinical Trial
OBJECTIVES/OBJECTIVE:Peripherally-directed treatments (targeted exercise, surgery) can reduce, but not fully eliminate, pain for up to 40% of patients with Achilles tendinopathy. The objectives were to: 1) Identify indicators of altered central processing in participants with Achilles tendinopathy compared to controls; and 2) determine which indicators of altered central processing persisted after a local anesthetic injection in patients with Achilles tendinopathy. DESIGN/METHODS:Mechanistic clinical trial. METHODS:46 adults participated (23 with chronic Achilles tendinopathy, 23 matched-controls; NCT03316378). All participants repeated: 1) movement-evoked pain rating, 2) motor performance, 3) pain psychology questionnaires; 4) quantitative sensory testing. Participants with Achilles tendinopathy received a local anesthetic injection before repeat testing and controls did not. Mixed-effects ANOVAs examined group, time, and group*time effects. RESULTS:>0.05). CONCLUSION/CONCLUSIONS:.
PMID: 32349638
ISSN: 1938-1344
CID: 4436972
Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of a Personalized Machine Learning Algorithm for Clinical Decision Support: Case Study With Shingles Vaccination
BACKGROUND:Although clinical decision support (CDS) alerts are effective reminders of best practices, their effectiveness is blunted by clinicians who fail to respond to an overabundance of inappropriate alerts. An electronic health record (EHR)-integrated machine learning (ML) algorithm is a potentially powerful tool to increase the signal-to-noise ratio of CDS alerts and positively impact the clinician's interaction with these alerts in general. OBJECTIVE:This study aimed to describe the development and implementation of an ML-based signal-to-noise optimization system (SmartCDS) to increase the signal of alerts by decreasing the volume of low-value herpes zoster (shingles) vaccination alerts. METHODS:We built and deployed SmartCDS, which builds personalized user activity profiles to suppress shingles vaccination alerts unlikely to yield a clinician's interaction. We extracted all records of shingles alerts from January 2017 to March 2019 from our EHR system, including 327,737 encounters, 780 providers, and 144,438 patients. RESULTS:During the 6 weeks of pilot deployment, the SmartCDS system suppressed an average of 43.67% (15,425/35,315) potential shingles alerts (appointments) and maintained stable counts of weekly shingles vaccination orders (326.3 with system active vs 331.3 in the control group; P=.38) and weekly user-alert interactions (1118.3 with system active vs 1166.3 in the control group; P=.20). CONCLUSIONS:All key statistics remained stable while the system was turned on. Although the results are promising, the characteristics of the system can be subject to future data shifts, which require automated logging and monitoring. We demonstrated that an automated, ML-based method and data architecture to suppress alerts are feasible without detriment to overall order rates. This work is the first alert suppression ML-based model deployed in practice and serves as foundational work in encounter-level customization of alert display to maximize effectiveness.
PMID: 32347813
ISSN: 1438-8871
CID: 4412352
Management of Coronary Disease in Patients with Advanced Kidney Disease
BACKGROUND:Clinical trials that have assessed the effect of revascularization in patients with stable coronary disease have routinely excluded those with advanced chronic kidney disease. METHODS:We randomly assigned 777 patients with advanced kidney disease and moderate or severe ischemia on stress testing to be treated with an initial invasive strategy consisting of coronary angiography and revascularization (if appropriate) added to medical therapy or an initial conservative strategy consisting of medical therapy alone and angiography reserved for those in whom medical therapy had failed. The primary outcome was a composite of death or nonfatal myocardial infarction. A key secondary outcome was a composite of death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, or hospitalization for unstable angina, heart failure, or resuscitated cardiac arrest. RESULTS:At a median follow-up of 2.2 years, a primary outcome event had occurred in 123 patients in the invasive-strategy group and in 129 patients in the conservative-strategy group (estimated 3-year event rate, 36.4% vs. 36.7%; adjusted hazard ratio, 1.01; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.79 to 1.29; P = 0.95). Results for the key secondary outcome were similar (38.5% vs. 39.7%; hazard ratio, 1.01; 95% CI, 0.79 to 1.29). The invasive strategy was associated with a higher incidence of stroke than the conservative strategy (hazard ratio, 3.76; 95% CI, 1.52 to 9.32; P = 0.004) and with a higher incidence of death or initiation of dialysis (hazard ratio, 1.48; 95% CI, 1.04 to 2.11; P = 0.03). CONCLUSIONS:Among patients with stable coronary disease, advanced chronic kidney disease, and moderate or severe ischemia, we did not find evidence that an initial invasive strategy, as compared with an initial conservative strategy, reduced the risk of death or nonfatal myocardial infarction. (Funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and others; ISCHEMIA-CKD ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01985360.).
PMID: 32227756
ISSN: 1533-4406
CID: 5451232
Coronary Artery Calcium as a Synergistic Tool for the Age- and Sex-Specific Risk of Cardiovascular and Cancer Mortality: The Coronary Artery Calcium Consortium
Background Coronary artery calcium (CAC) is a predictor for the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and to a lesser extent cancer. The age- and sex-specific relationship of CAC with CVD and cancer mortality is unknown. Methods and Results Asymptomatic patients aged 40 to 75 years old without known CVD were included from the CAC Consortium. We calculated sex-specific mortality rates per 1000 person-years' follow-up. Using parametric survival regression modeling, we determined the age- and sex-specific CAC score at which the risk of death from CVD and cancer were equal. Among the 59 502 patients included in this analysis, the mean age was 54.9 (±8.5) years, 34% were women, and 89% were white. There were 671 deaths attributable to CVD and 954 deaths attributable to cancer over a mean follow-up of 12±3 years. Among patients with CAC=0, cancer was the leading cause of death, the total mortality rate was low (women, 1.8; men, 1.5), and the CVD mortality rate was exceedingly low for women (0.3) and men (0.3). The age-specific CAC score at which the risk of CVD and cancer mortality were equal had a U-shaped relationship for women, while the relationship was exponential for men. Conclusions The age- and sex-specific relationship of CAC with CVD and cancer mortality differed significantly for women and men. Our age- and sex-specific CAC score provides a more precise estimate and further facilitates the use of CAC as a synergistic tool in strategies for the prediction and prevention of CVD and cancer mortality.
PMCID:7428523
PMID: 32310025
ISSN: 2047-9980
CID: 4961682
Molecular and clinical characterization of multidrug resistant and hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae strains from liver abscess in Taiwan
Hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae strains are the major causes of liver abscesses throughout East Asia, and these strains are usually antibiotic susceptible. Recently, multidrug resistant and hypervirulent (MDR-HV) K. pneumoniae strain emerged, arisen by hypervirulent strains acquiring antimicrobial resistance determinants or the transfer of a virulence plasmid into a classic MDR strain. In this study, we characterized the clinical and microbiological properties of K. pneumoniae liver abscess (KPLA) caused by MDR-HV strains in Taiwan. Patients with community-onset KPLA were retrospectively identified at Taipei Veterans General Hospital during January 2013 and May 2018. Antimicrobial resistance mechanisms, capsular types, and sequence types were determined. MDR-HV strains and their parental antimicrobial-susceptible strains further underwent whole genome sequencing (WGS) and in vivo mice lethality test. Thirteen MDR-HV strains were identified from a total of 218 KPLA episodes. MDR-HV strains resulted in similar outcomes to antimicrobial-susceptible strains. All MDR-HV strains were traditional hypervirulent clones carrying virulence capsular types. The major resistance mechanisms were the overexpression of efflux pumps and/or the acquisition of ESBL or AmpC β-lactamase genes. WGS showed two hypervirulent strains evolved to MDR phenotype after having a mutation in ramR and acquiring a SHV-12-bearing plasmid, respectively. Both the MDR-HV strains retained high virulence in comparison to their parental strains. The spread of MDR-HV K. pneumoniae strains in the community raises significant public concerns, and measures should be taken to prevent the further acquisition of carbapenemase and other resistance genes among these strains in order to avoid the occurrence of untreatable KPLA.
PMID: 32152079
ISSN: 1098-6596
CID: 4348772
