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Surveillance colonoscopies are crucial for high-risk patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) to detect colorectal carcinoma (CRC). However, there is no established quality metric for dysplasia detection rate (DDR) in IBD surveillance. This study assessed the DDR in a dedicated surveillance program at a tertiary referral center for IBD. Consecutive patients with quiescent colitis were enrolled in a cross-sectional study evaluating DDR. High-definition colonoscopy with dye chromoendoscopy (DCE) was performed by a specialized operator. Advanced dysplasia (AD) was defined as low-grade dysplasia ≥ 10 mm, high-grade dysplasia, or colorectal cancer. Risk factors for dysplasia detection were analyzed. In total, 119 patients underwent 151 procedures, identifying 206 lesions, of which 40 dysplastic with seven AD. Per-lesion and per-procedure DDR were 19.4 % and 20.5 %, respectively. The per-procedure AD detection rate (ADDR) was 4.6 %. A Kudo pit pattern of II-V had a sensitivity of 92.5 % for dysplasia detection but a false positive rate of 64.8 % (p < 0.001). Age at diagnosis and at index colonoscopy and past or indefinite dysplasia were associated with per-procedure dysplasia detection. In a real-world setting, a dedicated surveillance program achieved a high DDR. We suggest that optimal DDR in high-risk IBD patients be defined and implemented as a standardized quality measure for surveillance programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International Dermatology Outcome Measures and the American Academy of Dermatology recently agreed on a physician-reported global severity measure to demonstrate quality of care in inflammatory dermatoses. Because patient-reported outcome measures are also important, we aimed to achieve consensus on 1 of these measures for clinical practice. Patients and providers participated in a consensus-building study involving a modified-Delphi technique. Voting was focused on identifying a minimal set of assessments for clinical practice, patient global assessments (PtGAs), Skindex instruments, and final instrument selection for quality improvement. Among 53 stakeholders, >70% agreed that identification of patient goals, assessment of treatment harm, and assessment of the adequacy of treatment response were the minimal assessments needed for clinical practice. The most preferred PtGA was a 5-point PtGA (scale 0-4; 0 = clear, 4 = severe) having an optional check-box for worst ever. A new metric to assess change since treatment initiation, which we called a trajectory measure, was proposed. Stakeholders preferred Skindex instruments over PtGAs and a trajectory measure for clinical practice. A small number of patients and caregivers were involved and a consensus was not reached on all items. PtGAs as standalone measures do not adequately capture the patient's assessment of disease severity or the effect of care. The combination of a PtGA with a Skindex instrument or another measure of health-related quality of life might provide a more comprehensive evaluation of patients in clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy are a leading cause of maternal morbidity and mortality. Because postpartum exacerbation of severe hypertension is common, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends that patients with severe hypertension during the childbirth hospitalization be seen within 72 hours after discharge. In this statement, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine proposes a uniform metric reflecting the rate of timely postpartum follow-up of patients with severe hypertension. The metric is designed to be measured using automated calculations based on billing codes derived from claims data. The metric can be used in quality improvement projects to increase the rate of timely follow-up in patients with severe hypertension during the childbirth hospitalization. Suggested steps for implementing such a project are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: To develop and test a new quality measure assessing timeliness of follow-up mental health care for youth presenting to the emergency department (ED) with suicidal ideation or self-harm. METHODS: Based on a conceptual framework, evidence review, and a modified Delphi process, we developed a quality measure assessing whether youth 5 to 17 years old evaluated for suicidal ideation or self-harm in the ED and discharged to home had a follow-up mental health care visit within 7 days. The measure was tested in 4 geographically dispersed states (California, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee) using Medicaid administrative data. We examined measure feasibility of implementation, variation, reliability, and validity. To test validity, adjusted regression models examined associations between quality measure scores and subsequent all-cause and same-cause hospital readmissions/ED return visits. RESULTS: Overall, there were 16,486 eligible ED visits between September 1, 2014 and July 31, 2016; 53.5% of eligible ED visits had an associated mental health care follow-up visit within 7 days. Measure scores varied by state, ranging from 26.3% to 66.5%, and by youth characteristics: visits by youth who were non-White, male, and living in an urban area were significantly less likely to be associated with a follow-up visit within 7 days. Better quality measure performance was not associated with decreased reutilization. CONCLUSIONS: This new ED quality measure may be useful for monitoring and improving the quality of care for this vulnerable population; however, future work is needed to establish the measure's predictive validity using more prevalent outcomes such as recurrence of suicidal ideation or deliberate self-harm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Despite its importance of quality measures used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the underlying cost-effectiveness evidence has not been examined. This study aimed to analyze cost-effectiveness evidence associated with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services quality measures.Methods: After classifying 23 quality measures with the Donabedian's structure-process-outcome quality of care model, we identified cost-effectiveness analyses (CEAs) relevant to these measures from the Tufts Medical Center CEA Registry based on the PICOTS (population, intervention, comparator, outcome, time horizon, and setting) framework. We then summarized available incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) to determine the cost-effectiveness of the quality measures.Results: The 23 quality measures were categorized into 14 process, 7 outcome, and 2 structure measures. Cost-effectiveness evidence was only available for 8 of 14 process measures. Two measures (Tobacco Screening and Hemoglobin bA1c Control) were cost-saving and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) improving, and 5 (Depression Screening, Influenza Immunization, Colon Cancer Screening, Breast Cancer Screening, and Statin Therapy) were highly cost-effective (median ICER ≤ $50 000/QALY). The remaining measure (Fall Screening) had a median ICER of $120 000/QALY. No CEAs were available for 15 measures: 10 defined by subjective patient ratings and 5 employed outcome measures without specifying an intervention or process.Conclusions: When relevant CEAs were available, cost-effectiveness evidence was consistent with quality measures (measures were cost-effective). Nevertheless, most quality measures were based on subjective ratings or outcome measures, posing a challenge in identifying supporting economic evidence. Refining and aligning quality measures with cost-effectiveness evidence can help further improve healthcare efficiency by demonstrating that they are good indicators of both quality and cost-effectiveness of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyze "number of nodes" as an integer-valued variable to identify possible minimum lymph node (LN) number to sample during lung cancer resection. The National Cancer Database (NCDB) queried 2004-14 for surgically treated clinical stage I/II non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Overall survival (OS) by number of LN sampled was examined for the complete dataset, by adenocarcinoma, and by degree of resection using number of sampled LN both as integer-valued (0-30 nodes) variable and collapsed into classes. A total of 102,225 patients were analyzed. Median sampled LNs were 7. Median overall survival was 59 months if no LNs were sampled (95% confidence interval [CI]: 57.0-62.4), 74.7 months for 1 sampled LN (95% CI: 69.6-78.1), 80.2 (95% CI: 74.2-85.6) for 2 sampled LN, up to 81.5 mos. for 29 sampled LN. A Cox regression model using "0 LN" as baseline level, showed association with increased overall survival starting at 1 LN (hazard ratio [HR] 0.81, 95% CI 0.76-0.87; P <0.001). A "moving baseline" Cox regression model, showed no additional benefit when sampling additional nodes. We noticed a decreasing, linear association between OS and a number of 0-5 sampled LNs, most pronounced between 0 and 1 LN sampled, using a martingale residual plot from a null Cox model; no association was observed for more sampled LNs. For patients undergoing lobectomy, difference in OS was noted between 0 and 1LN sampled but not between 2 and 30 LN. These differences were not statistically significant until the number of 4 removed LN (respectively 3 for wedge-resections). For segmentectomies, median survival was not statistically associated with number of LN sampled. Based on NCDB data, LN sampling for lung cancer resections is recommended. Lobectomy survival is positively associated with 4 LN sampled, but ideal sampling may lie at 5LN in most cases. NCDB data does not seem to justify the quality metric of minimum 10 LNs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Excluded from reporting to CMS's Percentage of long-stay residents who got an antipsychotic medication quality-measure are antipsychotics prescribed to nursing home patients with schizophrenia, Tourette's, or Huntington's. Over the 4 years following its 2012 debut, the quality-measure calculated a 27% reduction in inappropriate antipsychotic use but also an 18.3% increase in exclusion claims. This study evaluated the impact of these exclusions on the measure's findings.Methods: Claims data for the years 2011-2016 retrospectively identified the prevalence of schizophrenia, Tourette's, and Huntington's in quarterly cohorts of Virginia long-stay residents prescribed antipsychotics. Annualized diagnoses in 2011 were compared with subsequent years using simple logistic regression.Results: In 2016, 29% of the antipsychotics prescribed in Virginia nursing homes were to residents with diagnoses of schizophrenia, Tourette's, and Huntington's, a significant 32% increase from 2011.Conclusion: Almost 30% of the antipsychotics employed in Virginia nursing homes are excluded from CMS's long-stay antipsychotic quality-measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: We implemented an infantile spasms management guideline recommending standard therapies and, early start of next treatment. After six years, we determined (1) our compliance with standard therapies, (2) time to next treatment, and (3) rate of initial and three-month electroclinical remission with first, second, and third treatments.Methods: This is a retrospective record review of newly diagnosed spasms from September 2012 to September 2018, with the onset age of two months to two years.Results: Standard therapies (hormone or vigabatrin) were the first treatments in 114 of 115 consecutive patients. The second and third treatments were started within 14 days of failed treatment in only 21% and 24%, respectively. Remission with the first and second treatments was similar (41% and 40%). Remission was lower for the third treatment (15%), although higher if standard therapy was used (36%). Initial and three-month remission by the first treatment was significantly higher for adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH, 66% and 79%, respectively) and prednisolone (53% and 83%, respectively) than for vigabatrin (19% and 40%, respectively). There were no significant differences in patient characteristics or rates of remission between ACTH and prednisolone.Conclusions: Although we achieved excellent compliance with standard therapies as initial treatment, a next treatment often started after two weeks. Given the superiority of hormone therapies over vigabatrin and standard therapies over nonstandard therapies, as well as the potentially negative impact of delays in effective treatment, future interventions need to focus on increasing the use of hormone over vigabatrin (for patients without tuberous sclerosis complex), use of standard therapies as second and third treatments, and reducing delays to next treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Perioperative outcomes, while often used to profile quality, are unreliable. • Historical reliability-adjusted mortality rate after lung cancer resection is associated with future 5-year survival. • Historical reliability-adjusted mortality rate may reflect performance across a broader spectrum of care. • Historical reliability-adjusted mortality rate may have useful implications for value-based payment. There are significant variations in both perioperative and long-term outcomes after lung cancer resection. While perioperative outcomes are often used as comparative measures of quality, they are unreliable, and their association with long-term outcomes remain unclear. In this context, we evaluated whether historical perioperative mortality after lung cancer resection is associated with 5-year survival. The National Cancer Database (NCDB) was queried to identify patients diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in 2010–2016 who underwent surgical resection (n = 234200). Hospital-level reliability-adjusted 90-day mortality rate quartiles for 2010–2013 was used as the independent variable to analyze 5-year survival for patients diagnosed in 2014–2016 (n = 85396). There were 85,396 patients in the 2014–2016 cohort across 1,086 hospitals. Overall observed 90-day mortality rate was 3.2% (SD 17.6%) with 2.6% (SD 16.0%) for the historically best performing quartile vs. 3.9% (SD 19.4%) for the worst performing quartile (p < 0.0001). Patients who underwent resection at hospitals with the best historical mortality rate had significantly better 5-year survival across all stages compared to those treated at hospitals in the worst performing quartile in multivariate Cox regression analysis (all stages – HR 1.21 [95% CI 1.15–1.26]; stage I – HR 1.19 [95% CI 1.12–1.25]; stage II – HR 1.20 [95% CI 1.09–1.32]; stage III – HR 1.36 [95% CI 1.20–1.54]) and Kaplan-Meier survival estimates (all stages – p < 0.0001, stage I – p < 0.0001; stage II – p = 0.0004; stage III – p < 0.0001). With expanded lung cancer screening criteria and likely increase in early-stage detection, profiling performance is paramount to ensuring mortality benefits. We found that episodes surrounding surgical resection may be used to profile long-term outcomes that likely reflect quality across a broader context of care. Evaluating lung cancer care quality using perioperative outcomes may be useful in profiling provider performance and guiding value-based payment policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The Changing Childbirth in British Columbia study explored women's preferences and experiences of maternity care, including women's role in decision-making.Methods: Following content validation by community members, we administered a cross-sectional online survey exploring novel topics, including drivers for interventions, and experiences of autonomy, respect, or mistreatment during maternity care. Using the Mothers Autonomy in Decision-Making (MADM) scale as an outcome measure in a mixed-effects analysis, we examined differential experiences by socio-demographic and prenatal risk profile, type of care provider, interventions received, and nature of communication with care providers.Results: A geographically representative sample of Canadian women (n = 2051) reported on 3400 pregnancies. Most women (95.2%) preferred to be the lead decision-maker during care. Patients of physicians had significantly lower autonomy (MADM) scores than midwifery clients as did women who felt pressured to accept interventions. Women who had a difference in opinion with their provider, and those who felt their provider seemed rushed reported the lowest MADM scores.Conclusion: Women's autonomy is significantly altered by model of maternity care, the nature of interactions with care providers, and women's ability for self-determination.Practice Implications: If health professionals acquire skills in person-centred decision-making experience of autonomy among pregnant women may improve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our evolving health care system, dermatologists are increasingly being asked to prove the value of care they provide to patients with severe skin diseases. Current quality measures for inflammatory dermatoses have limited validity and feasibility. Through collaboration and a modified Delphi process, International Dermatology Outcome Measures and the American Academy of Dermatology sought to reach consensus on a valid and feasible provider-assessed global disease severity metric to be incorporated into a quality measure for inflammatory dermatoses. To inform the modified Delphi process, a review of the literature was performed, and data were collected on current provider-assessed global disease severity metrics. After literature review, 36 members of International Dermatology Outcome Measures and the American Academy of Dermatology participated in the modified Delphi process to reach consensus on features of the metric. Psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, and acne achieved overwhelming consensus for inflammatory dermatoses that could be measured in a global disease severity metric. Consensus was also reached on the use of a 5-point ordinal scale with descriptors provided through referenced electronic platforms. Expert development of quality measures incorporating this metric and its inclusion in data collection platforms are critical to enabling dermatologists to prove the value of care provided to patients with severe inflammatory dermatoses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Thirty-day hospital readmissions following total hip arthroplasty (THA) have received increasing scrutiny by policy makers and hospitals. Emergency department (ED) visits may not necessarily result in an inpatient readmission but can be a measure of performance and can incur costs to the health system. The purpose of this study is to describe the following: (1) the frequency and subsequent disposition; (2) patient characteristics; (3) reasons; and (4) potential risk factors for ED visits that did not result in a readmission within 30 days of discharge after THA.Methods: All primary THAs performed at a large healthcare system between 2013 and 2015 were identified. Patients who received unplanned hospital services for complications within 30 days following surgery were identified and analyzed. A multiple regression analysis was utilized to identify risk factors predisposing for returning to the ED without readmission.Results: From a total of 6270 primary THAs, 440 patients (7%) had an unplanned return to the hospital within 30 days. Of those, 227 (3.6%) patients presented to the ED and were not readmitted. Higher percentage of African Americans was noted among patients who returned to the ED versus those who did not (20.2% vs 9.8%, P < .01). The most common medical diagnoses were nonspecific medical symptoms (24.8%) followed by minor gastrointestinal problems (10.5%). The most common surgery-related diagnoses were pain and swelling (35%), followed by wound complications (12%) and hip dislocations (7.3%). Nearly 50% of wound complications and 40% of hip dislocations were managed and discharged from the ED without a readmission. Both African Americans (odds ratio 2.28, 95% confidence interval 1.55-3.36) and home discharge (odds ratio 1.90, 95% confidence interval 1.28-2.82) were independent risk factors for return to the ED without readmission.Conclusion: ED visits that do not result in hospital readmissions, many of which may be due to serious complications, are more frequent than inpatient readmission. This is extremely relevant to policy makers and quality metrics, especially as comprehensive and bundled payment initiatives become more prevalent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Maximizing value in palliative care requires continued development and standardization of communication quality indicators.Objectives: To describe the basic epidemiology of a newly adopted patient-centered communication quality indicator for hospitalized palliative care patients with advanced cancer.Methods: Cross-sectional analysis of 207 advanced cancer patients who received palliative care consultation at two medical centers in the U.S. Participants completed the Heard & Understood quality indicator immediately before and the day after the initial palliative care consultation: Over the past two days ["24 hours" for the post-consultation version], how much have you felt heard and understood by the doctors, nurses, and hospital staff?-completely/quite a bit/moderately/slightly/not at all. We categorized completely as indicating ideal quality.Results: Approximately one-third indicated ideal Heard & Understood quality before palliative care consultation. Age, financial security, emotional distress, preferences for comfort-longevity tradeoffs at the end of life, and prognosis expectations were associated with preconsultation quality. Among those with less-than-ideal quality at baseline, 56% rated feeling more Heard & Understood the day after palliative care consultation. The greatest prepost improvement was among people who had unformed end-of-life treatment preferences or who reported having no idea about their prognosis at baseline.Conclusion: Most patients felt incompletely heard and understood at the time of referral to palliative care consultation, and more than half of the patients improved after consultation. Feeling heard and understood is an important quality indicator sensitive to interventions to improve care and key variations in the patient experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives This study sought to determine variability and stability in risk-standardized mortality rates (RSMR) of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) operators meeting minimum case volume standards and identify differences in case mix and practice patterns that may account for RSMR variability. Background RSMR has been suggested as a metric to evaluate the performance of PCI operators; however, variability of operator-level RSMR and the stability of this metric over time among the same operator are unknown. Methods The authors calculated mean RSMRs for PCI operators with average annual volume of ≥50 cases in the National Cardiovascular Data Registry CathPCI Registry. Funnel plots were used to account for operator case volume. Demographic, clinical, and treatment variables of patients treated by operators with outlying high or low RSMRs (identified by RMSR greater than or less than 2 σ above or below the mean [analogous to 2 SD], respectively) were compared with nonoutlier operators. RMSR stability was assessed by calculating average annual operator RMSR during the study period and by determining if operators were consistently classified into RMSR categories in each year. Results Between October 1, 2009, and September 30, 2014, a total of 2,352,174 PCIs were performed at 1,373 hospitals by 3,760 operators. Of these, 242 operators (6.5%) had RSMR >2 σ above the mean and 156 operators (4.1%) had RSMR >2 σ below the mean. Both high and low RSMR outlier operators treated patients with lower expected mortality risk, compared with nonoutlier operators. There was significant instability in annual operator RMSR during the study period. Conclusions There is significant variability in risk-standardized PCI mortality among U.S. operators meeting minimum volume standards that is not explained by case mix or procedure characteristics. Operator RMSR was unstable from year to year, thus limiting its utility as a sole performance measure for PCI quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To describe the reliability and validity of the publicly reported facility-level quality measures Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility (IRF) Discharge Mobility Score for Medical Rehabilitation Patients ("Discharge mobility score") and IRF Discharge Self-Care Score for Medical Rehabilitation Patients ("Discharge self-care score"). Observational study using standardized patient assessment data to examine facility-level split-half reliability and construct validity of quality measure scores. All IRFs (n = 1117) in the United States with at least 20 Medicare stays. Facility-level quality measure scores were calculated from 2017 data on 428,192 Medicare (fee-for-service and Medicare Advantage) IRF patient stays. Using clinician-reported assessment data, we calculated facility-level mobility and self-care quality measure scores and examined reliability of these scores using split-half analysis and Pearson product-moment correlations, Spearman rank correlations, and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC 2,1). We examined construct validity of these scores by comparing facility-level quality measure scores by facility stroke disease-specific certification status. Reported as percentages meeting or exceeding expectations, IRF quality measure scores ranged from 8.3% to 90.1% for mobility and 9.0% to 90.3% for self-care. IRF scores, when split in half to examine reliability, showed strong, positive correlations for the mobility (Pearson = 0.898, Spearman = 0.898, ICC = 0.898) and self-care (Pearson = 0.886, Spearman = 0.874, ICC = 0.886) scores. When stratified by provider volume, ICCs remained strong. Construct validity analyses showed IRFs with stroke disease-specific certification had higher mean and median scores than IRFs without certification, and a greater proportion of IRFs that were certified had higher scores. Our results support the reliability and construct validity of the IRF quality measures Discharge mobility and Discharge self-care scores. Reported as percentages meeting or exceeding expectations, these quality measures are designed to be more consumer-friendly compared to change scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last few years, cancer treatments have improved significantly with the introduction of new therapies aiming at reducing tumour angiogenesis, a process leading to disease progression and metastasis formation. Computed tomography perfusion (CTp) is being emerged as a promising functional technique for assessing tumour response to these new treatments, which yield a reduction of perfusion heterogeneity, occurring long before morphological reduction. However, several factors, such as noise induced by respiratory and physiological involuntary motion, prevent a reliable quantitative assessment, hence the clinical use of CTp. Currently, the assessment strategies rely on global measurements that fail in discriminating between noise and heterogeneity of tumour perfusion, both characterized by a wide value dispersion. This paper presents a new approach for reliability estimation by introducing a novel local-based index, which is able to discriminate between tumour heterogeneity, featured by locally structured patterns, and noise, characterised by sparse and unstructured values. This index enables a proper comparison between perfusion maps and can replace the parameters based on the global mean, thus improving the overall reliability of CTp studies and favouring the translation into clinical routine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demonstrating and improving value of care continues to be increasingly important in hand surgery. To prepare for emerging models that transition payment from volume to value, hand surgeons will benefit from a clear understanding of quality, cost, and value. National organizations and both public and private payers increasingly advocate for patient-reported outcome measures for pay for reporting and pay for performance initiatives. These are intended to incentivize providers and health systems to improve patient-centered care while minimizing costs. Appreciating the limitations to using patient-reported outcomes in hand surgery can ensure hand surgery is appropriately assessed in novel payment models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives The aim of this study was to explore whether the use of bleeding avoidance strategies (BAS) explains variability in hospital-level bleeding following percutaneous coronary intervention. Background Prior studies have reported that bleeding rates following percutaneous coronary intervention vary markedly among hospitals, but the extent to which use of BAS explains this variation is unknown. Methods Using the American College of Cardiology National Cardiovascular Data Registry’s CathPCI Registry, estimated hospital-level bleeding rates from 2,459,686 procedures at 1,358 sites were determined. A series of models were fit to estimate random-effect variance, adjusting for patient risk (using the validated CathPCI bleeding risk model, C statistic = 0.77) and various combinations of BAS (transradial access, bivalirudin, vascular closure device use). The rate of any BAS use was also estimated for each hospital, and the association between percentage BAS use and predicted bleeding rates was determined. Results In total, 125,361 bleeding events (5.1%) were observed; patients experiencing bleeding events had lower rates of radial access (5.0% vs. 11.2%; p < 0.001), bivalirudin therapy (43.8% vs. 59.4%), and vascular closure device use (32.9% vs. 42.4%, p < 0.001) than those without bleeding. There was significant variation in bleeding rates across hospitals (median 5.0%; interquartile range [IQR]: 2.7% to 6.6%), which persisted after incorporating patient-level risk (median 5.1%; IQR: 4.0% to 4.4%). Patient factors accounted for 20% of the overall hospital-level variation, and radial access plus bivalirudin use accounted for an additional 7.8% of the overall hospital-level variation. The median hospital rate of any BAS use was 86.6% (IQR: 72.5% to 94.1%). A significant decrease in observed hospital-level bleeding was seen in hospitals above the median in BAS use (adjusted odds ratio: 0.90; 95% confidence interval: 0.88 to 0.93). Conclusions A modest proportion of the variation in hospitals’ rates of bleeding following percutaneous coronary intervention is attributable to differential use of BAS. Further analyses are required to determine the remaining approximately 70% causes of variation in percutaneous coronary intervention bleeding seen among hospitals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In automotive industry, market demands shorter life cycles and individualized products. For manual assembly, this trend leads to more frequent planning of an ever increasing number of process variants. In order to ensure planning quality, virtual verification of manual production is crucial for efficient process optimization. However, virtual verification is not established in practice because available simulation tools require prohibitive manual modeling effort for human motions of acceptable quality. For automating the modeling process, data driven motion synthesis approaches are promising candidates that –however– require high quality input data for acceptable synthesis results. Therefore, objective motion capture data quality measures for data driven human motion synthesis are sought. This work proposes and tests a principal component analysis (PCA) and a Shannon entropy based quality measure. Both measures evaluate post-processed data and thus consider motion capture hardware in combination with a post-processing tool chain. The measures are tested for selectivity and validity using two low cost and two high cost motion capture systems. They differ in selectivity for high and low cost motion capture systems. Both measures correctly predict motion synthesis quality in tests with treadmill walking. Therefore, they can be employed for testing if a motion capture system is suitable for data driven motion synthesis that relies on PCA for input dimension reduction. Further research on robustness of the measures against motion variation is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The purpose of this project was to evaluate a standardized measure of health care personnel (HCP) influenza vaccination during the first year of implementation. The measure requires acute care hospitals to gather vaccination status data from employees, licensed independent practitioners (LIPs), and adult students/trainees and volunteers. The evaluation included a hospital sampling frame stratified by 4 United States Census Bureau Regions and hospital bed count. The hospitals were selected within strata using simple random sampling and the probability proportional to size method, without replacement. Methods Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted. Two qualitative data analysts independently coded each interview, and data were synthesized using a thematic analysis. This evaluation took place at hospitals reporting HCP influenza vaccination data as part of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program. Participants included the staff at 46 hospitals who were knowledgeable about data collection to fulfill IQR program requirements. Results Facilitators of data collection included having a small number of HCP, having a data collection system already in place, and providing HCP with advance notice of data collection. Major challenges included the absence of an established tracking process and monitoring HCP not regularly working in the facility, particularly LIPs. More than half of the facilities noted the time- and/or resource-intensive nature of data collection. Most facilities used data collected to meet other reporting requirements beyond the IQR Program. Conclusions Hospitals implemented a range of data collection methods to comply with reporting requirements. Lessons learned from the first year of measure implementation can be used to enhance data collection practices across HCP groups for future influenza seasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we present a simultaneous untangling and smoothing technique for quadrilateral and hexahedral meshes. The algorithm iteratively improves a quadrilateral or hexahedral mesh by minimizing an objective function defined in terms of a regularized algebraic distortion measure of the elements. We propose several techniques to improve the robustness and the computational efficiency of the optimization algorithm. In addition, we have adopted an object-oriented paradigm to create a common framework to smooth meshes composed by any type of elements, and using different minimization techniques. Finally, we present several examples to show that the proposed technique obtains valid meshes composed by high-quality quadrilaterals and hexahedra, even when the initial meshes contain a large number of tangled elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Isogeometric Analysis (IGA) was introduced by Hughes et al. (2005) [1] as a new method to bridge the gap between the geometry description and numerical analysis. Similar to the finite element approach, the IGA concept to solve a partial differential equation leads to a (linear) system of equations. The condition number of the coefficient matrix is a crucial factor for the stability of the system. It depends strongly on the domain parameterization, which provides the isogeometric discretization. In this paper we derive a bound for the condition number of the stiffness matrix of the Poisson equation. In particular, we investigate the influence of the domain parameterization and the knot spacing on the stability of the numerical system. The factors appearing in our bound reflect the stability properties of a given domain parameterization. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: 2D barcodes are widely used in many commercial applications where a scanning device is normally used to capture them. When mobile phones are used to capture 2D barcodes, the obtained images are usually distorted due to cheap camera lens and sensors, handshake and poor lighting conditions. These badly distorted images require a long decoding process which results in an error message generated or wrongly decoded information. In this paper, we propose a two-stage quality measure for the mobile phone captured 2D barcodes in order to reject those poor quality images. The proposed method is based on the global bimodal distribution features and the local finder pattern detection. Experimental results on QR code images show that the proposed two-stage quality measure has 97.64% prediction accuracy with an average run time of 110ms by rejecting distorted undecodable barcode images in advance. The proposed method also has good generalizability to “unseen” camera models and performs well under different lighting conditions. Experiments on data matrix images show that our quality measure can be extended to 2D barcode patterns with similar features. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is an important cause of hospital acquired morbidity with implications for quality of care. Radical cystectomy is a surgical procedure associated with high rates of morbidity one of which is a high rate of CDI. The rate of CDI among patients undergoing radical cystectomy may be estimated based on the reports from single institutions or by querying national databases. This study aims to compare rates of CDI reported in single institution series with rates obtained from national datasets.Methods: A search was conducted on PubMed and Google Scholar using the terms "cystectomy+difficile" and "cystectomy+complication." Three hundred fifty articles were screened and 46 met criteria for inclusion based on the presence of specific rates of C. difficile following radical cystectomy. In the case of articles reporting on the same database, only the article with a larger sample size was included in the pooled analysis. One study reviewing a single institution was excluded from pooled analysis because it did not relate the rate of CDI specifically with cystectomy. Multi-institutional studies were not included in pooled analysis.Results: After exclusion of repeated data and multi-institutional studies, the pooled analysis consisted of 39 studies. Thirty five articles reported rates of CDI in single institutions and 4 articles reported rates found in national databases. Studies focusing on a single institution reported an average 5.02% (standard deviation = 4.88) incidence of CDI, compared to an average of 1.92% (standard deviation = 0.22) in databases. The rate of CDI found by totaling patients and incidence of infection found that databases show a rate of 1.95%, while institutions show a rate of 4.11% (P < 0.0000001).Conclusion: The rate of CDI following radical cystectomy may be underestimated in national databases. This has implications for the development of health policy and quality measures based on the rate of CDI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Quality measures are tools used by physicians, health care systems, and payers to evaluate performance, monitor the outcomes of interventions, and inform quality improvement efforts. A paucity of quality measures exist that address hand surgery care. We completed a RAND/UCLA (University of California Los Angeles) Delphi Appropriateness process with the goal of developing and evaluating candidate hand surgery quality measures to be used for national quality measure development efforts. Methods A consortium of 9 academic upper limb surgeons completed a RAND/UCLA Delphi Appropriateness process to evaluate the importance, scientific acceptability, usability, and feasibility of 44 candidate quality measures. These addressed hand problems the panelists felt were most appropriate for quality measure development. Panelists rated the measures on an ordinal scale between 1 (definitely not valid) and 9 (definitely valid) in 2 rounds (preliminary round and final round) with an intervening face-to-face discussion. Ratings from 1 to 3 were considered not valid, 4 to 6 as equivocal or uncertain, and 7 to 9 as valid. If no more than 2 of the 9 ratings were outside the 3-point range that included the median (1–3, 4–6, or 7–9), the panelists were considered to be in agreement. If 3 or more of the panelists’ ratings of a measure were within the 1 to 3 range and 3 or more ratings were in the 7 to 9 range, the panelists were considered to be in disagreement. Results There was agreement on 43% (19) of the measures as important, 27% (12) as scientifically sound, 48% (21) as usable, and 59% (26) as feasible to complete. Ten measures met all 4 of these criteria and were, therefore, considered valid measurements of quality. Quality measures that were developed address outcomes (patient-reported outcomes for assessment and improvement of function) and processes of care (utilization rates of imaging, antibiotics, occupational therapy, ultrasound, and operative treatment). Conclusions The consortium developed 10 measures of hand surgery quality using a validated methodology. These measures merit further development. Clinical relevance Quality measures can be used to evaluate the quality of care provided by physicians and health systems and can inform quality and value-based reimbursement models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Parallel to its life-threatening nature, breast cancer can affect physical integrity, having a psychosocial impact on patients. Determining the optimal proportion of patients who should undergo breast reconstruction after cancer surgery represents a complex task. What seems to be unquestionable is that the ability to offer reconstruction and a wide range of surgical options plays an important role in current breast cancer management. The multidisciplinary approach is a paramount aspect not only for a successful oncologic treatment, but also for improving patient quality of life. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Purpose Physicians, health care systems, and payers use quality measures to judge performance and monitor the outcomes of interventions. Practicing upper-limb surgeons desire quality measures that are important to patients and feasible to use, and for which it is fair to hold them accountable. Methods Nine academic upper-limb surgeons completed a RAND/University of California–Los Angeles Delphi Appropriateness process to evaluate the importance, feasibility, and accountability of 134 quality measures identified from systematic review. Panelists rated measures on an ordinal scale between 1 (definitely not valid) and 9 (definitely valid) in 2 rounds (preliminary round and final round) with an intervening face-to-face discussion. Ratings from 1 to 3 were considered not valid, 4 to 6 were equivocal or uncertain, and 7 to 9 were valid. If no more than 2 of the 9 ratings were outside the 3-point range that included the median (1–3, 4–6, or 7–9), panelists were considered to be in agreement. If 3 or more ratings of a measure were within the 1 to 3 range whereas 3 or more ratings were in the 7 to 9 range, panelists were considered to be in disagreement. Results There was agreement that 58 of the measures are important (43%), 74 are feasible (55%), and surgeons can be held accountable for 39 (29%). All 3 thresholds were met for 33 measures (25%). A total of 36 reached agreement for being unimportant (48%) and 57 were not suited for surgeon accountability (43%). Conclusions A minority of upper-limb quality measures were rated as important for care, feasible to complete, and suitable for upper-limb surgeon accountability. Clinical relevance Before health systems and payers implement quality measures, we recommend ensuring their importance and feasibility to safeguard against measures that may not improve care and might misappropriate attention and resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Purpose: There is a controversy about whether lymph node yield can be used as a proxy of quality care for patient with colorectal cancer. We aim to use propensity score models to investigate the association between lymph node number and long-term survival for colorectal cancer patients. Materials and methods: Taiwan Cancer Database was employed to review all patients with newly diagnosed colorectal cancer from 2003 to 2005. Exclusion criteria included those patients with stage IV disease or without information of lymph node. Propensity score models (examined lymph node >12 or <12 as dependent variable) were applied to group of patients with Stage II or Stage III disease and primary end point was 5-year survival (and mortality). We also report results of Stage I–III for comparison. Results: We identified 15,731 newly diagnosed colorectal cancers during study period, among which a total of 10,517 colorectal cancer patients treated at 32 hospitals fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Pathology reports of about 63 % (6658/10517) patients revealed lymph node retrieval >12. After propensity score matching, there were 2888, 1079, 1094 pairs recruited for Stage I–III, Stage II and Stage III, respectively. According to analysis of these matched pairs, the 5-year risk adjusted overall mortality were lower for lymph node examined ≥12 than <12 among Stage II (24.3% vs. 31.1%, p =0.012) and Stage I–III (20.8% vs. 23.6%, p =0.003), but insignificant for Stage III (40.2% vs. 45.6%, p =0.073). Similar situation happened with regard to disease-free and disease-specific mortality. Conclusion: For patients with colorectal cancer undergoing colorectal surgery, the quality metric of lymph node is associated with significantly better 5-year survival except for Stage III disease. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]