Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate pneumonia readmissions of older adults with dementia. Readmission rates and predictive factors of older adults with and without dementia were compared in this study. Subjects: A nationally representative sample of 389,198 discharge records, representing 370,003 patients, was extracted from the 2013 Nationwide Readmission Database. Methods: Descriptive statistics were utilized to describe the demographics of the sample population. Differences between groups were analyzed using chi-square or t test statistics as appropriate. A generalized linear model was used to examine predictive factors for pneumonia readmissions. Results: Older adults with dementia had a readmission rate of 23.52% and were 2.9 times more likely to experience a pneumonia readmission than older adults without dementia. Significant differences in characteristics were found when comparing (a) older adults with and without dementia, (b) older adults with and without dementia who were readmitted, and (c) older adults with dementia who were and were not readmitted. Factors that significantly interacted with dementia included (a) discharge disposition, (b) number of chronic conditions, (c) risk of mortality, and (d) median household income. Conclusions: Classifying older adults with dementia as a high-risk group for pneumonia readmissions is supported by the findings of this study. More over, dementia diagnoses significantly affect discharge disposition, there are characteristic differences among older adults with dementia, and comorbidities and risk of mortality significantly affect pneumonia readmissions. Development of strategies to reduce pneumonia readmissions that are tailored to individuals with dementia should be considered.

No description available.

Postnatal care is an area for serious concern, with readmission of women and infants following discharge having increased significantly over the past decade. A reduction in average postnatal stays together with care delivered by many members of a fragmented multidisciplinary team disallowing full timely assessments of health needs, are reasons cited for this. There is a disjuncture between process, policy and health outcomes in maternity and neonatal outcomes. While there is evidence indicating what needs to be done to reduce mortality and morbidity and improve outcomes, more is required in relation to how this is done; central to this is innovation. Currently, the NHS does not have sufficient useful data on the extent to which frontline workers are delivering needed interventions, or their short and long-term impacts. Unscheduled maternity and neonatal admissions are supposedly a key indicator of the quality of maternity care. An understanding of why these incidents occur could generate significant cost reductions at a time of severe austerity and enhance the quality of care and safety for women and their infants.

Yes / Background The patient transition from a hospital to a post-discharge healthcare setting has potential to disrupt continuity of medication management and increase the risk of harm. “Connect with Pharmacy” is a new electronic web-based transfer of care initiative employed by Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. This allows the sharing of discharge information between the hospital and a patient’s chosen community pharmacy. Objective We investigated whether the timely sharing of discharge information with community pharmacies via “Connect with Pharmacy” reduced hospital readmission rates in older patients. Method To evaluate intervention efficacy, hospital admission data was retrospectively collected. For primary analysis, admission rates were tracked 6-months prior (baseline) and 6-months post-intervention. Secondary measures included effect on total length of stay if readmitted, emergency department attendance and duration, and impact of polypharmacy. Main outcome measure The rate of non-elective hospital readmissions, 6-months post-intervention. Results In the sample (n = 627 patients; Mean age = 81 years), emergency readmission rates following the intervention (M = 1.1, 95% CI [0.98, 1.22]) reduced by 16.16% relative to baseline (M = 1.31, 95% CI [1.21, 1.42]) (W = 54,725; p < 0.001). There was no reduction in total length of stay. Subsidiary analysis revealed a post-intervention reduction in number of days spent in hospital lasting more than three days (χ2 = 13.37, df = 1, p < 0 .001). There were no statistically reliable differences in the remaining secondary measures. Conclusion The results showed a reduction in readmissions and potential post-intervention length of stay, indicating there may be further benefits for our older patients’ experiences and hospital flow.

A grande procura pelo Serviço de Emergência e a conseqüente permanência dos pacientes em repetidas admissões representam entraves para os enfermeiros, os quais são responsáveis pelo gerenciamento desses serviços. Objetivos: Caracterizar o perfil dos pacientes readmitidos em um Serviço de Emergência de um hospital filantrópico; identificar o perfil sócio-demográfico e de morbidade dos pacientes readmitidos; caracterizar a utilização do Serviço de Emergência e identificar os fatores relacionados às readmissões. Casuística e Método: estudo transversal, descritivo e exploratório realizado em um Serviço de Emergência de um hospital filantrópico de ensino, de atenção terciária, na cidade de São Paulo. A amostra foi composta por pacientes maiores de 14 anos considerados internados no Serviço de Emergência, com mais de uma admissão, nos seis meses anteriores ao dia da coleta de dados. A coleta de dados foi realizada por meio de instrumento estruturado com questões abertas e fechadas, e as informações foram obtidas do prontuário do paciente e por entrevista direta ao paciente ou familiares, durante todo o mês de maio de 2004. Resultados: a incidência de readmissões foi de 23,3%. Houve predomínio de pacientes do sexo masculino (61,9%), idade de 40 a 90 anos (85,9%), baixa escolaridade (57,8%) e 46,7% pertenciam à área de regionalização do SUS para o serviço estudado. Quase a totalidade (92,8%) não era cadastrada no PSF, sendo que grande parte (45,4%) referiu desconhecer o programa. As principais hipóteses diagnósticas foram as doenças do aparelho circulatório (33,7%) seguidas pelas neoplasias (24,1%). A maioria dos pacientes (57,6%) foi readmitido com o mesmo diagnóstico e 23,9% devido a complicações. Na visão dos entrevistados, como fatores desencadeantes da readmissão, 40,9% referiram causas potencialmente evitáveis. A maioria dos entrevistados referiu que seu problema não foi resolvido na internação anterior, sendo o principal motivo a continuidade dos sintomas. Conclusões: A incidência de readmissões foi elevada, podendo ter sido ocasionada por evolução da doença crônico-degenerativa, idade avançada, baixo seguimento das orientações recebidas, complicações pós-operatórias, necessidade de cuidado domiciliar e não resolução do problema na admissão anterior / The great need for the Emergency Department and the resultant length of stay of the patients in repeated admissions become a hard situation for nurses, who are responsible for the administration on this units. Objectives: characterize the readmitted patients at the Emergency Department in a philanthropyc hospital; identify the socialdemographic and morbity profile of the readmitted patients; characterize the use of the Emergency Department; identify factors associated with readmissions. Methods: transversal, descriptive and exploratory study, at the Emergency Department on a tertiary health service of a philanthropic teaching hospital in São Paulo city, the sample was made by patients over fourteen years old that became inpatient at the Emergency Department, with over than one admission until six months before the data collection day. It was used an instrument with opened and closed questions for the data collection. Data were obtained from patient records and by interview to the patient or responsible, during May 2004. Results: the readmission incidence was 23,3%. The patients were predominantly males (61,9%), age 40 to 90 years old (85,9%), low level education (57,8%); 46,7% lived at areas regarding the regionalization of the health service. Almost of all (92,8%) wasn’t registered at Family Health Program, and a high proportion of patients (45,4%) were unaware of this program. The main diagnosis were circulatory disease (33,7%) followed by cancer (24,1%). Most of patients (57,6%) was readmitted with the same diagnosis and 23,9% due to complications. On the perception of 40,9% of the patients, the related factors to readmissions were classified as potentially avoidable causes. Conclusions: The readmission incidence was raised, it was can be caused by problems in adherence to treatment, gravity of chronic disease, not enough orientation, or by complications

The efforts to improve health care delivery usually involve studies and analysis of patient populations and healthcare systems. In this dissertation, I present the research conducted in the following areas: identifying patient groups, improving treatments for specific conditions by using statistical as well as data mining techniques, and developing new operation research models to increase system efficiency from the health institutes’ perspective. The results provide better understanding of high risk patient groups, more accuracy in detecting disease’ correlations and practical scheduling tools that consider uncertain operation durations and real-life constraints.

A grande procura pelo Serviço de Emergência e a conseqüente permanência dos pacientes em repetidas admissões representam entraves para os enfermeiros, os quais são responsáveis pelo gerenciamento desses serviços. Objetivos: Caracterizar o perfil dos pacientes readmitidos em um Serviço de Emergência de um hospital filantrópico; identificar o perfil sócio-demográfico e de morbidade dos pacientes readmitidos; caracterizar a utilização do Serviço de Emergência e identificar os fatores relacionados às readmissões. Casuística e Método: estudo transversal, descritivo e exploratório realizado em um Serviço de Emergência de um hospital filantrópico de ensino, de atenção terciária, na cidade de São Paulo. A amostra foi composta por pacientes maiores de 14 anos considerados internados no Serviço de Emergência, com mais de uma admissão, nos seis meses anteriores ao dia da coleta de dados. A coleta de dados foi realizada por meio de instrumento estruturado com questões abertas e fechadas, e as informações foram obtidas do prontuário do paciente e por entrevista direta ao paciente ou familiares, durante todo o mês de maio de 2004. Resultados: a incidência de readmissões foi de 23,3%. Houve predomínio de pacientes do sexo masculino (61,9%), idade de 40 a 90 anos (85,9%), baixa escolaridade (57,8%) e 46,7% pertenciam à área de regionalização do SUS para o serviço estudado. Quase a totalidade (92,8%) não era cadastrada no PSF, sendo que grande parte (45,4%) referiu desconhecer o programa. As principais hipóteses diagnósticas foram as doenças do aparelho circulatório (33,7%) seguidas pelas neoplasias (24,1%). A maioria dos pacientes (57,6%) foi readmitido com o mesmo diagnóstico e 23,9% devido a complicações. Na visão dos entrevistados, como fatores desencadeantes da readmissão, 40,9% referiram causas potencialmente evitáveis. A maioria dos entrevistados referiu que seu problema não foi resolvido na internação anterior, sendo o principal motivo a continuidade dos sintomas. Conclusões: A incidência de readmissões foi elevada, podendo ter sido ocasionada por evolução da doença crônico-degenerativa, idade avançada, baixo seguimento das orientações recebidas, complicações pós-operatórias, necessidade de cuidado domiciliar e não resolução do problema na admissão anterior / The great need for the Emergency Department and the resultant length of stay of the patients in repeated admissions become a hard situation for nurses, who are responsible for the administration on this units. Objectives: characterize the readmitted patients at the Emergency Department in a philanthropyc hospital; identify the socialdemographic and morbity profile of the readmitted patients; characterize the use of the Emergency Department; identify factors associated with readmissions. Methods: transversal, descriptive and exploratory study, at the Emergency Department on a tertiary health service of a philanthropic teaching hospital in São Paulo city, the sample was made by patients over fourteen years old that became inpatient at the Emergency Department, with over than one admission until six months before the data collection day. It was used an instrument with opened and closed questions for the data collection. Data were obtained from patient records and by interview to the patient or responsible, during May 2004. Results: the readmission incidence was 23,3%. The patients were predominantly males (61,9%), age 40 to 90 years old (85,9%), low level education (57,8%); 46,7% lived at areas regarding the regionalization of the health service. Almost of all (92,8%) wasn’t registered at Family Health Program, and a high proportion of patients (45,4%) were unaware of this program. The main diagnosis were circulatory disease (33,7%) followed by cancer (24,1%). Most of patients (57,6%) was readmitted with the same diagnosis and 23,9% due to complications. On the perception of 40,9% of the patients, the related factors to readmissions were classified as potentially avoidable causes. Conclusions: The readmission incidence was raised, it was can be caused by problems in adherence to treatment, gravity of chronic disease, not enough orientation, or by complications

Background: Sepsis, a leading cause of US deaths, is associated with high mortality, although advances in early recognition and treatment have increased survivorship. Many aspects of sepsis pathophysiology and epidemiology have not been fully elucidated; the heterogeneous nature of infections that lead to sepsis has made fully characterizing the underlying epidemiology challenging. Methods: The University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) from 2011-2014 and the Cerner HealthFacts® database from 2008-2014 were used. We examined associations between infection source and in-hospital mortality in the UHC dataset, stratified by age and presenting sepsis stage. We examined recent temporal trends in present-on-admission (POA) sepsis diagnoses and mortality and predictors of 30-day sepsis readmissions following sepsis hospitalizations using the HealthFacts® dataset. Results: Patients with sepsis due to genitourinary or skin, soft tissue, or bone sources had lower mortality than patients with sepsis due to respiratory sources regardless of age or presenting sepsis stage. Overall diagnoses of sepsis increased from 2008-2014; however, POA diagnoses and case fatality rates decreased. Factors that predicted re-hospitalization for sepsis included discharge to hospice, admission from or discharge to a skilled nursing facility, and abdominal infection. Conclusion: Further investigation will reveal more detail to explain the impact of infection source on in-hospital sepsis mortality for all age groups and sepsis stages. Decreasing mortality rates for all POA sepsis stages and all age groups suggest current approaches to sepsis management are having broad impact. Sepsis survivors are at significant risk for re-hospitalization; further studies are needed to understand the post discharge risks and needs of survivors.

No description available.

The U.S. healthcare system is facing many public health challenges that affect population health, societal well-being, and quality of healthcare. Infant mortality, opioid overdose death, and hospital readmission after stroke are some of these important public health concerns that can impact the effectiveness and outcomes of the healthcare system. We analyze these problems through the industrial engineering and data analytics lens. The major goal of this dissertation is to enhance understanding of these three challenges and related interventions using different levels of analysis to improve the health outcomes. To attain this objective, I introduced three stand-alone papers to answer the related research questions. In essay 1, we focused on the performance of the state's healthcare systems in reducing unfavorable birth outcomes such as infant mortality, preterm birth, and low birthweight using Data Envelopment Approach. We constructed a unique state-level dataset to answer this main research question: what does make a healthcare system more successful in improving the birth outcomes? Our results indicated that socioeconomic and demographic factors may facilitate or obstruct health systems in improving their outcomes. We realized that states with a lower rate of poverty and African-American women were more successful in effectively reduce unfavorable birth outcomes. In the second essay, we looked into the trends of the opioid overdose mortalities in each state from 2008 to 2017. We investigated the effect of four state laws and programs that have been established to curb the epidemic (i.e., dose and duration limitations on the initial prescription, pain management clinic laws, mandated use of prescription drug monitoring programs, and medical cannabis laws) in short and long-term, while we controlled for several protentional risk factors. The results of fixed-effect regression and significant tests indicated that state policies and laws were unlikely to result in an immediate reduction in overdose mortalities and comprehensive interventions were needed to restrain the epidemic. The third essay investigated the risk factors of 30-day readmission in patients with ischemic stroke at an individual level. We aimed to identify the main risk factors of stroke readmissions and prioritized them using machine learning techniques and logistic regression. We also introduced the most effective predictive model based on different performance metrics. We used the electronic health records of stroke patients extracted from two stroke centers within the Geisinger Health System from 2015 to 2018. This data set included a comprehensive list of clinical features, patients' comorbidities, demographical characteristics, discharge status, and type of health insurance. One of the major findings of this study was that stroke severity, insert an indwelling urinary catheter, and hypercoagulable state were more important than generally known diagnoses such as diabetes and hypertension in the prediction of stroke 30-day readmission. Furthermore, machine learning-based models can be designed to provide a better predictive model. Overall, this dissertation provided new insights to better understand the three major challenges of the U.S. healthcare system and improve its outcomes. / Doctor of Philosophy / The major goal of a healthcare system can be summarized in three main objectives: preventing preterm birth and premature mortality, advancing the quality of life, and preparing for a good death. Despite all the national efforts to achieve these goals, the U.S. healthcare system still faces many obstacles and crises and suffers from inefficiencies. The U.S. infant mortality rate is still higher than any other comparable advanced country. The opioid overdose death rate has been steadily increasing since 1999 and has risen exponentially in recent years. Hospital readmissions especially in stroke patients impose a substantial cost burden on the healthcare system in the U.S. Also, readmitted stroke patients are at higher risk of mortality compared to the first admission. I believe that industrial engineering and data analytics approaches can help in advancing the understanding of these health challenges, their important risk factors, and effective interventions. In this dissertation, the main focus was on the performance, trends, variations, and processes of the healthcare systems. We applied innovative methods to provide answers to the following questions in three essays: What does make a healthcare system more successful in improving the birth outcomes? What factors do explain mortality from opioid painkillers? What are the determinants of state variations in mortalities from an opioid overdose? What is the impact of states' laws and programs and opioid prescription rates and overdose mortality rates? What are the most important contributors to stroke readmissions? The results of the first essay showed that not all the state's healthcare systems perform the same in terms of reducing unfavorable birth outcomes. States with lower people in poverty and lower African American women were more successful in improving their birth outcomes. The second study revealed that states with a higher share of uninsured people and binge drinkers were suffering from higher opioid overdose deaths. Also, our results implied that in addition to upstream prevention policies, states need to implement downstream programs to curb the epidemic. Finally, the third study showed that the top predictors of stroke readmissions within 30 days consist of the severity of the stroke, insert an indwelling urinary catheter, being overweight, and malnourished. The results of this dissertation can help to educate policymakers and practitioners at state and organizational level in a way to better serve the society and ultimately enhance the population health, quality of healthcare, and societal well-being.