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Objectives: Develop and test the performance of electronic version of the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh Pediatric Risk of Mortality-IV and electronic version of the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh Pediatric Logistic Organ Dysfunction-2 scores., Design: Retrospective, single-center cohort derived from structured electronic health record data., Setting: Large, quaternary PICU at a freestanding, university-affiliated children's hospital., Patients: All encounters with a PICU admission between January 1, 2009, and December 31, 2017, identified using electronic definitions of inpatient encounter., Interventions: None., Measurements and Main Results: The main outcome was predictive validity of each score for hospital mortality, assessed as model discrimination and calibration. Discrimination was examined with the area under the receiver operating characteristics curve and the area under the precision-recall curve. Calibration was assessed with the Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness of fit test and calculation of a standardized mortality ratio. Models were recalibrated with new regression coefficients in a training subset of 75% of encounters selected randomly from all years of the cohort and the calibrated models were tested in the remaining 25% of the cohort. Content validity was assessed by examining correlation between electronic versions of the scores and prospectively calculated data (electronic version of the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh Pediatric Risk of Mortality-IV) and an alternative informatics approach (Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh Pediatric Logistic Organ Dysfunction-2 score). The cohort included 21,335 encounters. Correlation coefficients indicated strong agreement between different methods of score calculation. Uncalibrated area under the receiver operating characteristics curves were 0.96 (95% CI, 0.95-0.97) for electronic version of the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh Pediatric Logistic Organ Dysfunction-2 score and 0.87 (95% CI, 0.85-0.89) for electronic version of the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh Pediatric Risk of Mortality-IV for inpatient mortality. The uncalibrated electronic version of the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh Pediatric Risk of Mortality-IV standardized mortality ratio was 0.63 (0.59-0.66), demonstrating strong agreement with previous, prospective evaluation at the study center. The uncalibrated electronic version of the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh Pediatric Logistic Organ Dysfunction-2 score standardized mortality ratio was 0.20 (0.18-0.21). All models required recalibrating (all Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit, p < 0.001) and subsequently demonstrated acceptable goodness-of-fit when examined in a test subset (n = 5,334) of the cohort., Conclusions: Electronically derived intensive care acuity scores demonstrate very good to excellent discrimination and can be calibrated to institutional outcomes. This approach can facilitate both performance improvement and research initiatives and may offer a scalable strategy for comparison of interinstitutional PICU outcomes.

Background: Healthcare providers play an important role in encouraging healthy behaviors and improving health-related quality of life (HRQoL). They are most effective when they partner with informed, engaged patients., Objective: To examine the impact of a new health-information technology intervention (FAST-Feedback) that provides patients with immediate, personalized, guideline-based feedback regarding tobacco use, physical activity, and HRQoL, and encourages patients to initiate discussions regarding these topics with their primary care physician., Design: A pilot, randomized controlled trial clustered by resident physician, with patients as the unit of analysis., Participants: Resident physicians and their out-patients in a single academic health center between May and October 2011., Intervention: Patients received (intervention) or did not receive (control) FAST-Feedback prior to the clinical encounter., Main Outcome Measures: Primary outcomes were patient reports of initiating any discussions regarding tobacco use, physical activity, and HRQoL. Subgroup analyses examined patient reports of discussions regarding tobacco use, physical activity, and HRQoL, respectively., Key Results: Thirty of the 36 eligible resident physicians (83%) agreed to participate; 173 of their 415 eligible patients (42%) expressed interest in the study and 99 (24%) consented to participate. Compared to controls, a higher percentage of intervention patients reported initiating any discussion with their resident physician, although this difference was not statistically significant (40% vs. 27%; p = 0.12). For subgroup analyses regarding specific topics of discussion, patients in the intervention group reported initiating more discussions regarding mental HRQoL than controls (23% vs. 0%; p = 0.02). There was no difference in patient reports of initiating discussions regarding smoking, physical activity or physical HRQoL., Conclusions: Providing patients with immediate, personalized, guideline-based feedback prior to the clinical encounter can increase patient-initiated discussions regarding mental HRQoL. Future work should test FAST-Feedback in a larger population and evaluate the impact on tobacco cessation, increased physical activity, and improvements in HRQoL.

Objective: University students with influenza-like illness (ILI) were assessed to determine whether symptom severity, duration, or missed days of school or work varied according to etiology., Participants: Sixty persons presenting to a university health clinic with ILI symptoms during 3 consecutive influenza seasons completed baseline survey and viral testing; 51 (85%) completed follow-up., Methods: Influenza viral culture and polymerase chain reaction and respiratory virus immunofluorescence assay testing were performed. Information collected at baseline and follow-up included symptom occurrence, severity, duration, and numbers of days of work and school missed., Results: Influenza virus was confirmed in 63% of participants. Influenza-positive individuals were no more likely to report any symptom or miss more days of school or work. Self-reported severity and durations of symptoms were similar between groups., Conclusions: Students with influenza-associated ILI were similar to those with noninfluenza ILI with respect to severity, duration, and numbers of days of school and work missed.

West Nile virus (WNV) infection can result in severe neuroinvasive disease, particularly in persons with advanced age. As rodent models demonstrate that T cells play an important role in limiting WNV infection, and strong T cell responses to WNV have been observed in humans, we postulated that inadequate antiviral T cell immunity was involved in neurologic sequelae and the more severe outcomes associated with age. We previously reported the discovery of six HLA-A*0201 restricted WNV peptide epitopes, with the dominant T cell targets in naturally infected individuals being SVG9 (Env) and SLF9 (NS4b). Here, memory phenotype and polyfunctional CD8+ T cell responses to these dominant epitopes were assessed in 40 WNV seropositive patients displaying diverse clinical symptoms. The patients' PBMC were stained with HLA-I multimers loaded with the SVG9 and SLF9 epitopes and analyzed by multicolor flow cytometry. WNV-specific CD8+ T cells were found in peripheral blood several months post infection. The number of WNV-specific T cells in older individuals was the same, if not greater, than in younger members of the cohort. WNV-specific T cells were predominantly monofunctional for CD107a, MIP-1β, TNFα, IL-2, or IFNγ. When CD8+ T cell responses were stratified by disease severity, an increased number of terminally differentiated, memory phenotype (CD45RA+ CD27- CCR7- CD57+) T cells were detected in patients suffering from viral neuroinvasion. In conclusion, T cells of a terminally differentiated/cytolytic profile are associated with neuroinvasion and, regardless of age, monofunctional T cells persist following infection. These data provide the first indication that particular CD8+ T cell phenotypes are associated with disease outcome following WNV infection.

Introduction: Combination treatment, rather than monotherapy, is prevalent in the treatment of subjects with bipolar disorder, probably due to the complex and phasic nature of the illness. In general, prescription patterns may be influenced by the demographic characteristics of patients as well. We evaluated prescription patterns and the influence of demographic variables on these patterns in a voluntary registry of subjects with bipolar disorder., Methods: A subset of data from a larger voluntary registry was extracted for demographic variables and psychotropic medication use that had been reported in the month prior to registration by ambulatory, non-hospitalized subjects with bipolar I disorder in 1995/96 (n = 457)., Results: Among the thymoleptic agents, lithium was prescribed in over 50% of subjects, valproate in approximately 40%, and carbamazepine in 11% of subjects. Eighteen percent of subjects had no prescription for thymoleptic agents. Nearly one-third of all subjects were receiving antipsychotic agents, of whom two-thirds were receiving the traditional neuroleptic agents. More than half of all subjects were receiving concomitant antidepressants, of whom nearly 50% received the SSRI antidepressants and nearly 25% received buproprion. Approximately 40% of subjects received benzodiazepines. Only 18% of subjects received monotherapy, and nearly 50% received three or more psychotropic agents. In general, no associations were noted between demographic parameters including age, gender, marital or educational status, and psychotropic prescriptions., Conclusion: Consistent with the anecdotal reports, these data confirm that combination treatment is far more common than monotherapy. Demography appears to have a minimal impact on cross-sectional prescription patterns in subjects with bipolar disorder. Given that combination treatments are the rule rather than the exception, we should strive to achieve rational, yet pragmatic, treatment guidelines and algorithms to minimize the risks while maximizing the benefits of these combination treatments for patients with bipolar disorder.