Faculty Bibliography

In the fourth part in a four-part series, Ofri talks about his book Medicine in Translation: Journeys with My Patients. He writes here about freedom from fear and how the Americans she knows strive for it every day of their lives

Recent health care improvement initiatives have linked financial payments to compliance with predetermined performance measures. This article reports the effect of a unique prophylactic antibiotic use program on compliance rates and costs. The Departments of Surgery, Infection Control, and Anesthesiology collaborated on a prophylactic preoperative antibiotic protocol, whereby Anesthesiology assumed responsibility for timely antibiotic prophylaxis (TAP) before surgical incision. Data from January 1, 2008, to December 31, 2008, were compared (z test) with the 12-month period before this change. chi(2) Analysis identified factors associated with TAP. Return on investment (ROI) was calculated. TAP compliance rates increased from 75.1% to 89.3% (P < .001) following program implementation. Factors associated with TAP failure included >60 minutes from anesthesia induction to surgical incision (P < .001), surgical procedure (P < .001), specific antibiotic administered (P < .001), and individual anesthesia provider (P < .001). The ROI was 2.2. TAP compliance rates increased after Anesthesiology assumed responsibility, with anesthesia providers being a significant factor

AIMS: This paper is a report of a descriptive comparative pilot study of use of a method that simultaneously tests the content validity and quality of translation of English-to-Chinese translations of two patient satisfaction questionnaires: the La Monica-Oberst Patient Satisfaction Scale and Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems. BACKGROUND: Patient satisfaction is an important indicator of the quality of healthcare services. In China, however, few good translations of patient satisfaction instruments sensitive to nursing services exist. METHODS: The descriptive pilot study took place in 2009 and used content validity indexing techniques to evaluate the content, context and criterion relevance of a survey question. The expert raters were 10 nursing faculty and 10 patients who evaluated the two patient satisfaction questionnaires. The experts evaluated the relevance of each item on a scale of 1-4 and the research team compared their responses to choose the most appropriate. Only the nurse faculty experts, who were bilingual, evaluated the quality of the translation using a binary rating. RESULTS: The 'Nurse Rater' relevance scores of the LaMonica-Oberst Patient Satisfaction Scale and the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems were 0.96 and 0.95 respectively, whereas the patient's overall relevance scores were 0.89 and 0.95. A Mann-Whitney U-test demonstrated that results between the two groups were statistically significantly different (P = 0.0135). CONCLUSIONS: Using content validity indexing simultaneously with translation processes was valuable for selecting and evaluating survey instruments in different contexts.

Quantitative risk (QR) formulas have been developed for multiple conditions but are not routinely used in clinical practice. Tests were made of the feasibility of an automated clinical care process for using QR in routine primary care. Several modifications were made to the Framingham Risk Score (FRS) and it was applied to routine care in three areas: (1) for risk-stratification, (2) patient education about care options, and (3) guidance on optimizing choice of care options. Evidence-based methods were used to convert the smoking status variable from a binary- to a continuous-scale format and to add variables for alcohol use and HbA1c. An automated protocol tested in 2008-2010 was successful for all three applications. At-risk patients (defined according to criteria from the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure [JNC]-7 or the National Cholesterol Education Program Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Cholesterol in Adults [adult treatment panel/ATP-III]) were automatically identified during routine encounters. Patient-reported data were obtained (n = 1826) by touchscreen questionnaire and automatically used with electronic health record (EHR) data to calculate risks on 1068 patients who had complete data. Patients were risk-stratified. Higher-risk patients viewed an interactive web-based tool and chose options to modify risk factors. Feasibility was successful for use of the FRS in the interactive web tool

Elevated serum total cholesterol (TC) has been considered a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD), but conflicting results have confused understanding of the relationships of serum lipids to the presence of AD in the elderly.Methods: To clarify these issues, we evaluated correlations of admission TC, low-density (LDL) and high-density (HDL)cholesterol directly with the densities of Alzheimer hallmarks--neuritic plaques (NP) and neurofibrillary tangles (NFT)--in nursing home residents (n=281). Results: Significant positive associations of TC and LDL with NP densities were found in both the neocortex (TC: r=0.151, p=0.013 and LDL: r=0.190, p=0.005) and the hippocampal/entorhinal (allocortical)region (TC: r=0.182, p=0.002 and LDL: r=0.203, p=0.003). Associations of HDL with NP were less strong but also significant.In contrast, after adjustment for confounders, no correlations of NFT with any lipid were significant.When subjects with any non-AD neuropathology (largely vascular) were excluded, the TC-plaque and LDL-plaque associations for the remaining "Pure AD" subgroup were consistently stronger than for the full sample. The TC- and LDL-plaque correlations were also stronger for the subgroup of 87 subjects with an APOE epsilon4 allele. Conclusions: The findings indicate that serum TC and LDL levels clearly relate to densities of NP, but not to densities of NFT. The stronger associations found in the subgroup that excluded all subjects with non-AD neuropathology suggest that cerebrovascular involvement does not explain these lipid-plaque relationships. Since the associations of TC/LDL with NP were particularly stronger in epsilon4 carriers, varying prevalence of this allele may explain some discrepancies among prior studies.

We present two cases of peritoneal dialysis (PD) catheter-related Pseudomonas peritonitis that were poorly responsive to treatment guidelines of antibiotics and early catheter removal, and uncommonly complicated with ongoing intractable infections. An emergency exploratory laparotomy with extensive intraoperative peritoneal lavage and drainage was performed. The patients recovered dramatically and were transferred to hemodialysis permanently. These unusual cases show the possibility of persistent intra-abdominal infection that may extend extra-abdominally. Early diagnosis of persistent infection, timely surgical intervention, and concept of source control are of utmost importance.