Background: Growing use of peripherally inserted central catheters (PICCs) has led to the development of certification programs for PICC operators. Much like the debate regarding certification in medicine, whether such certification influences clinical care is [...]
Background: Accurate problem lists linked to electronic medical record (EMR) clinical data can be useful for chart review by clinicians for patient care, clinical decision support design, and data extraction for clinical research. The EMR [...]
Background: Improving patient-provider communication is crucial for promoting a shared understanding of the care plan among patients and providers. Increasingly, hospitals are focusing on efforts to engage patients in establishing recovery goals and understanding their [...]
Background: Heparin-Induced Thrombocytopenia (HIT) is a rare (0.1-1% of heparinized medical patients) but devastating (up to 10% mortality) side-effect of heparin administration[1]. In thrombocytopenic patients, the pre-test probability of HIT is estimated by the validated [...]
Background: About 209,000 adults experience an in-hospital cardio-pulmonary arrest (IHCA) every year in the US. Known early warning scoring systems (e.g., MEWS, eCART) have shown low efficiency in predicting a patient’s risk of deterioration. We assessed the possibility of [...]
Background: Cardiac telemetry was originally designed to help detect and provide early intervention in arrhythmic complications of myocardial infarction. Today, however, telemetry use continues to expand beyond the critical and coronary care units, despite adequate [...]
Background: Increasing use of EHRs has generated widespread interest in the potential of computerized clinical decision support to improve treatment of sepsis. Electronic sepsis alerts have thus far had mixed results due to poor test [...]