Use of Acute Mental Health Care in U.S. Children's Hospitals Before and After Statewide COVID-19 School Closure Orders.

Objective: This study aimed to examine changes in child emergency department (ED) discharges and hospitalizations for primary general medical (GM) and primary psychiatric disorders; prevalence of psychiatric disorders among acute care encounters; and change in acute mental health (MH) care encounters by disorder type and, within these categories, by child sociodemographic characteristics before and after statewide COVID-19­related school closure orders. Methods: This retrospective, cross-sectional cohort study used the Pediatric Health Information System database to assess percent changes in ED discharges and hospitalizations (N=2,658,474 total encounters) among children ages 3­17 years in 44 U.S. children's hospitals in 2020 compared with 2019, by using matched data for 36- and 12-calendar-week intervals. Results: Decline in MH ED discharges accounted for about half of the decline in ED discharges and hospitalizations for primary GM disorders (−24.8% vs. −49.1%), and MH hospitalizations declined 3.4 times less (−8.0% vs. −26.8%) in 2020. Suicide attempt or self-injury and depressive disorders accounted for >50% of acute MH care encounters before and after the statewide school closures. The increase in both ED discharges and hospitalizations for suicide attempt or self-injury was 5.1 percentage points (p<0.001). By fall 2020, MH hospitalizations for suicide attempt or self-injury rose by 41.7%, with a 43.8% and 49.2% rise among adolescents and girls, respectively. Conclusions: Suicide or self-injury and depressive disorders drove acute MH care encounters in 44 U.S. children's hospitals after COVID-19­related school closures. Research is needed to identify continuing risk indicators (e.g., sociodemographic characteristics, psychiatric disorder types, and social determinants of health) of acute child MH care.

Improving patient flow during infectious disease outbreaks using machine learning for real-time prediction of patient readiness for discharge.

BACKGROUND: Delays in patient flow and a shortage of hospital beds are commonplace in hospitals during periods of increased infection incidence, such as seasonal influenza and the COVID-19 pandemic. The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate the efficacy of machine learning methods at identifying and ranking the real-time readiness of individual patients for discharge, with the goal of improving patient flow within hospitals during periods of crisis. METHODS AND PERFORMANCE: Electronic Health Record data from Oxford University Hospitals was used to train independent models to classify and rank patients' real-time readiness for discharge within 24 hours, for patient subsets according to the nature of their admission (planned or emergency) and the number of days elapsed since their admission. A strategy for the use of the models' inference is proposed, by which the model makes predictions for all patients in hospital and ranks them in order of likelihood of discharge within the following 24 hours. The 20% of patients with the highest ranking are considered as candidates for discharge and would therefore expect to have a further screening by a clinician to confirm whether they are ready for discharge or not. Performance was evaluated in terms of positive predictive value (PPV), i.e., the proportion of these patients who would have been correctly deemed as 'ready for discharge' after having the second screening by a clinician. Performance was high for patients on their first day of admission (PPV = 0.96/0.94 for planned/emergency patients respectively) but dropped for patients further into a longer admission (PPV = 0.66/0.71 for planned/emergency patients still in hospital after 7 days). CONCLUSION: We demonstrate the efficacy of machine learning methods at making operationally focused, next-day discharge readiness predictions for all individual patients in hospital at any given moment and propose a strategy for their use within a decision-support tool during crisis periods.

How Many Older Informal Caregivers Are There in Europe? Comparison of Estimates of Their Prevalence from Three European Surveys.

Informal caregivers are people providing some type of unpaid, ongoing assistance to a person with a chronic illness or disability. Long-term care measures and policies cannot take place without taking into account the quantitatively crucial role played by informal caregivers. We use the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS), the European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS), and the Study on Health and Ageing in Europe (SHARE) to measure the prevalence of informal caregivers in the European population, and analyze associated socio-demographic factors. This rate ranges between about 13 percent in Portugal and Spain, and more than 22 percent in Luxembourg, Belgium, and Denmark. It declines in older age groups and, on average, is lower in men than in women in all countries studied, and lower among the poorly educated compared to those with higher levels of education. However, large variance was observed in the average share of informal caregivers for most countries between the three surveys. Our findings, estimated through the three surveys, reveal common trends, but also a series of disparities. Additional research will be needed to enable policy makers to access a richer and more harmonized body of data, allowing them to adopt truly evidence-based and targeted policies and interventions in this field.

Side-Effects of COVID-19 on Patient Care: An INR Story.

BACKGROUND: Numerous studies have documented reduced access to patient care due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including access to diagnostic or screening tests, prescription medications, and treatment for an ongoing condition. In the context of clinical management for venous thromboembolism, this could result in suboptimal therapy with warfarin. We aimed to determine the impact of the pandemic on utilization of International Normalized Ratio (INR) testing and the percentage of high and low results. METHODS: INR data from 11 institutions were extracted to compare testing volume and the percentage of INR results ≥3.5 and ≤1.5 between a pre-pandemic period (January-June 2019, period 1) and a portion of the COVID-19 pandemic period (January-June 2020, period 2). The analysis was performed for inpatient and outpatient cohorts. RESULTS: Testing volumes showed relatively little change in January and February, followed by a significant decrease in March, April, and May, and then returned to baseline in June. Outpatient testing showed a larger percentage decrease in testing volume compared to inpatient testing. At 10 of the 11 study sites, we observed an increase in the percentage of abnormal high INR results as test volumes decreased, primarily among outpatients. CONCLUSION: The COVID-19 pandemic impacted INR testing among outpatients which may be attributable to several factors. Increased supratherapeutic INR results during the pandemic period when there was reduced laboratory utilization and access to care is concerning because of the risk of adverse bleeding events in this group of patients. This could be mitigated in the future by offering drive-through testing and/or widespread implementation of home INR monitoring.

Clinical characteristics and outcomes of 48 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 infection in Wuxi: A retrospective cohort study.

ABSTRACT: Since the first infected case of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) was reported in Wuhan, China in December 2019, the virus has spread swiftly, inflicting upon millions of people around the globe. The objective of the study is to investigate and analyze the clinical characteristics and outcomes of patients infected with COVID-19 in Wuxi, China.Cross-sectional study.The Fifth People's Hospital of Wuxi, China.A total of 48 COVID-19 patients were enrolled in the study from 23 January 2020 to 8 March 2020, and the clinical data of these subjects were collected.Epidemiological, clinical, laboratory, and radiologic characteristics, as well as treatment and outcome data, were collected and analyzed.Of these 48 patients with confirmed COVID-19, 3 were mild cases (6.3%), 44 were moderate cases (91.7%), 1 was severe case (2.1%). The median age of the subjects was 45 years (interquartile range [IQR], 24-59; range, 5-75 years). Twenty-five of the patients (52.1%) were male and 23 (47.9%) were female. Twenty-eight cases (58.3%) returned to Wuxi, Jiangsu Province. Thirty-four (70.8%) cases were infected due to clustering epidemic and 29 cases (85.3%) were attributable to family-clustering epidemic. No obvious clinical symptoms were observed in the cohort of patients, except for 3 mild cases. The most common symptoms include fever (41 [85.4%]), cough (28 [58.3%]), asthenia (13 [27.1%]), expectoration (11 [22.9%]), diarrhea (10 [20.8%]), and dyspnea (5 [10.4%]). Seventeen (35.4%) patients had lower lymphocyte values than baseline, 31 patients (64.6%) had higher d-dimers to exceed the normal range. The distribution of high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT)-positive lesions were as follows: left lung in 5 cases (10.4%), right lung in 9 cases (18.8%), and bilateral lungs in 31 cases (64.6%). In terms of density of lesions: 28 cases (58.3%) showed ground glass shadows in the lung, 7 cases (14.6%) showed solid density shadows, and 10 cases (20.8%) showed mixed density shadows. Extrapulmonary manifestations found that mediastinal lymph nodes were enlarged in 2 cases (4.2%) and that pleural effusion was present in 1 case (2.1%). All patients underwent treatment in quarantine. Forty-five (93.8%) patients received antiviral treatments, 22 (45.8%) patients received antibacterial treatments, 6 (12.5%) patients received glucocorticoid treatments, 2 (4.2%) patients received high flow oxygen inhalation treatments, and 6 (12.5%) patients received noninvasive ventilation treatments. As of 8 March 2020, all 48 patients included in this study were cured. The average time of hospitalization of the 48 patients was 18 ±â€Š6 (mean ±â€ŠSD) days, the average time of the lesion resorption was 11 ±â€Š4 days, and the average time taken to achieve negativity in the result of nucleic acid examination was (10 ±â€Š4) days.The epidemiological characteristics of 48 COVID-19 patients in Wuxi were mainly imported cases and clustered cases. The clinical manifestations of these patients were mainly fever and cough. Laboratory results showed that the lymphocytopenia and increased d-dimer are positively correlated with disease severity. Pulmonary imaging showed unilateral or bilateral ground glass infiltration. Most of the patients entered clinical recovery stage within 15 days after hospitalization.

Analysis of Nationwide Stroke Patient Care in Times of COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Since the beginning of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, many countries have introduced strict hygiene measures of social distancing to prevent further spreading of the disease. This may have led to a decreased presentation to hospital of patients with acute medical conditions and time-dependent management, such as stroke. METHODS: We conducted a nationwide cohort study using administrative database of all hospitalized patients with main diagnosis of acute ischemic stroke (AIS), transient ischemic attack, or intracerebral hemorrhage. Data from a total of 1463 hospitals in Germany were included. We compared case numbers and treatment characteristics of pandemic (March 16 to May 15, 2020) and prepandemic (January 16 to March 15, 2020) cases and also with corresponding time period in 2019. RESULTS: We identified a strong decline for hospitalization of AIS (-17.4%), transient ischemic attack (-22.9%), and intracerebral hemorrhage (-15.8%) patients during the pandemic compared with prepandemic period. IVT rate in patients with AIS was comparable (prepandemic versus pandemic: 16.4% versus 16.6%, P=0.448), whereas mechanical thrombectomy rate was significantly higher during the pandemic (8.1% versus 7.7%, P=0.044). In-hospital mortality was significantly increased in patients with AIS during the pandemic period (8.1% versus 7.6%, P=0.006). CONCLUSIONS: Besides a massive decrease in absolute case numbers, our data suggest that patients with AIS who did seek acute care during the pandemic, continued to receive acute recanalization treatment in Germany.

Burnout, depersonalization, and anxiety contribute to post-traumatic stress in frontline health workers at COVID-19 patient care, a follow-up study.

INTRODUCTION: We designed a follow-up study of frontline health workers at COVID-19 patient care, within the same working conditions, to assess the influence of their general characteristics and pre-existing anxiety/depression/dissociative symptoms and resilience on the development of symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), while monitoring their quality of sleep, depersonalization/derealization symptoms, acute stress, state anxiety, and burnout. METHODS: In a Hospital reconfigured to address the surge of patients with COVID-19, 204 frontline health workers accepted to participate. They completed validated questionnaires to assess mental health: before, during, and after the peak of inpatient admissions. After each evaluation, a psychiatrist reviewed the questionnaires, using the accepted criteria for each instrument. Correlations were assessed using multivariable and multivariate analyses, with a significance level of .05. RESULTS: Compared to men, women reporting pre-existing anxiety were more prone to acute stress; and younger age was related to both pre-existent common psychological symptoms and less resilience. Overall the evaluations, sleep quality was bad on the majority of participants, with an increase during the epidemic crisis, while persistent burnout had influence on state anxiety, acute stress, and symptoms of depersonalization/derealization. PTSD symptoms were related to pre-existent anxiety/depression and dissociative symptoms, as well as to acute stress and acute anxiety, and negatively related to resilience. CONCLUSIONS: Pre-existent anxiety/depression, dissociative symptoms, and coexisting acute anxiety and acute stress contribute to PTSD symptoms. During an infectious outbreak, psychological screening could provide valuable information to prevent or mitigate against adverse psychological reactions by frontline healthcare workers caring for patients.

Telemedicine in Radiation Oncology: Is It Here to Stay? Impacts on Patient Care and Resident Education.

PURPOSE: Telemedicine was rapidly and ubiquitously adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there are growing discussions as to its role postpandemic. METHODS AND MATERIALS: We surveyed patients, radiation oncology (RO) attendings, and RO residents to assess their experience with telemedicine. Surveys addressed quality of patient care and utility of telemedicine for teaching and learning core competencies. Satisfaction was rated on a 6-point Likert-type scale. The quality of teaching and learning was graded on a 5-point Likert-type scale, with overall scores calculated by the average rating of each core competency required by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (range, 1-5). RESULTS: Responses were collected from 56 patients, 12 RO attendings, and 13 RO residents. Patient feedback was collected at 17 new-patient, 22 on-treatment, and 17 follow-up video visits. Overall, 88% of patients were satisfied with virtual visits. A lower proportion of on-treatment patients rated their virtual visit as "very satisfactory" (68.2% vs 76.5% for new patients and 82.4% for follow-ups). Only 5.9% of the new patients and none of the follow-up patients were dissatisfied, and 27% of on-treatment patients were dissatisfied. The large majority of patients (88%) indicated that they would continue to use virtual visits as long as a physical examination was not needed. Overall scores for medical training were 4.1 out of 5 (range, 2.8-5.0) by RO residents and 3.2 (range, 2.0-4.0) by RO attendings. All residents and 92% of attendings indicated they would use telemedicine again; however, most indicated that telemedicine is best for follow-up visits. CONCLUSIONS: Telemedicine is a convenient means of delivering care to patients, with some limitations demonstrated for on-treatment patients. The majority of both patients and providers are interested in using telemedicine again, and it will likely continue to supplement patient care.

Caring for cancer patients in the Covid pandemic: choosing between the devil and deep sea.

BACKGROUND: Healthcare is an essential service at any time more so in the crisis like Covid. With increase in number of cases and mortality from Covid, the primary focus is shifted to the management of the Covid crisis and other health emergencies thus affecting normal health services and routine treatment of other diseases like cancer. METHODS: This article reviews the published literature and guidelines on Covid and cancer and discusses them to optimize the care of cancer patients during Covid pandemic to improve treatment outcomes. RESULTS: The results of the review of published literature show a twofold increase in probability of getting CoV2 infection by the cancer patients and a four-fold increase in chance of death. On the other hand, if left untreated a 20% increase in cancer death is expected. Data further show that none of the medicines like remdesivir, hydroxy chloroquin, dexamethasone, or azithromycin improves survival and response to Covid in cancer patients. Surgical results too show similar outcome before and after the pandemic though most of these report on highly selected patients populations. CONCLUSIONS: The Covid 2019 pandemic places cancer patients in a very difficult situation wherein if they seek treatment, they are exposing themselves to a risk of developing CoV2 infection and if they do not, the probability of dying without treatment increases. Hence, for them it is a choice between the devil and deep sea, and it is for the healthcare providers to triage patients and treat who cannot wait even though the data from the carefully selected cohort of patients show no increase in mortality or morbidity from treatment during Covid.

To evaluate the effect of COVID-19 pandemic and national lockdown on patient care at a tertiary-care ophthalmology institute.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the effect of COVID-19 pandemic and national lockdown on patient care at a tertiary-care ophthalmology institute. METHODS: Records of all the patients who presented from March 25th to May 3rd, 2020 were scanned to evaluate the details regarding the presenting complaints, diagnosis, advised treatment and surgical interventions. RESULTS: The number of outpatient department visits, retinal laser procedures, intravitreal injections and cataract surgeries during this lockdown decreased by 96.5%, 96.5%, 98.7% and 99.7% respectively compared from the corresponding time last year. Around 38.8% patients could be triaged as non-emergency cases based on history alone while 59.5% patients could be triaged as non-emergency cases after examination. Only eighty-four patients opted for video-consultation from April 15th to May 3rd, 2020. Nine patients presented with perforated corneal ulcer, but could not undergo penetrating keratoplasty due to the lack to available donor corneal tissue. One of these patients had to undergo evisceration due to disease progression. Two patients with open globe injury presented late after trauma and had to undergo enucleation. Around 9% patients could not undergo the advised urgent procedure due to logistical issues related to the lockdown. CONCLUSION: A significant number of patients could not get adequate treatment during the lockdown period. Hospitals need to build capacity to cater to the expected patient surge post-COVID-19-era, especially those requiring immediate in-person attention. A large number of patients can be classified as non-emergency cases. These patients need to be encouraged to follow-up via video-consultation to carve adequate in-person time for the high-risk patients.

Early vascular surgery response to the COVID-19 pandemic: Results of a nationwide survey.

OBJECTIVE: The COVID-19 pandemic has had major implications for the United States health care system. This survey study sought to identify practice changes, to understand current personal protective equipment (PPE) use, and to determine how caring for patients with COVID-19 differs for vascular surgeons practicing in states with high COVID-19 case numbers vs in states with low case numbers. METHODS: A 14-question online survey regarding the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on vascular surgeons' current practice was sent to 365 vascular surgeons across the country through REDCap from April 14 to April 21, 2020, with responses closed on April 23, 2020. The survey response was analyzed with descriptive statistics. Further analyses were performed to evaluate whether responses from states with the highest number of COVID-19 cases (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and California) differed from those with lower case numbers (all other states). RESULTS: A total of 121 vascular surgeons responded (30.6%) to the survey. All high-volume states were represented. The majority of vascular surgeons are reusing PPE. The majority of respondents worked in an academic setting (81.5%) and were performing only urgent and emergent cases (80.5%) during preparation for the surge. This did not differ between states with high and low COVID-19 case volumes (P = .285). States with high case volume were less likely to perform a lower extremity intervention for critical limb ischemia (60.8% vs 77.5%; P = .046), but otherwise case types did not differ. Most attending vascular surgeons worked with residents (90.8%) and limited their exposure to procedures on suspected or confirmed COVID-19 cases (56.0%). Thirty-eight percent of attending vascular surgeons have been redeployed within the hospital to a vascular access service or other service outside of vascular surgery. This was more frequent in states with high case volume compared with low case volume (P = .039). The majority of vascular surgeons are reusing PPE (71.4%) and N95 masks (86.4%), and 21% of vascular surgeons think that they do not have adequate PPE to perform their clinical duties. CONCLUSIONS: The initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in reduced elective cases, with primarily only urgent and emergent cases being performed. A minority of vascular surgeons have been redeployed outside of their specialty; however, this is more common among states with high case numbers. Adequate PPE remains an issue for almost a quarter of vascular surgeons who responded to this survey.

One train may hide another: Acute cardiovascular diseases could be neglected because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is likely to have significant implications for the cardiovascular care of patients. In most countries, containment has already started (on 17 March 2020 in France), and self-quarantine and social distancing are reducing viral contamination and saving lives. However, these considerations may only be the tip of the iceberg; most resources are dedicated to the struggle against COVID-19, and this unprecedented situation may compromise the management of patients admitted with cardiovascular conditions. AIM: We aimed to assess the effect of COVID-19 containment measures on cardiovascular admissions in France. METHODS: We asked nine major cardiology centres to give us an overview of admissions to their nine intensive cardiac care units for acute myocardial infarction or acute heart failure, before and after containment measures. RESULTS: Before containment (02-16 March 2020), the nine participating intensive cardiac care units admitted 4.8±1.6 patients per day, versus 2.6±1.5 after containment (17-22 March 2020) (rank-sum test P=0.0006). CONCLUSIONS: We confirm here, for the first time, a dramatic drop in the number of cardiovascular admissions after the establishment of containment. Many hypotheses might explain this phenomenon, but we feel it is time raise the alarm about the risk for patients presenting with acute cardiovascular disease, who may suffer from lack of attention, leading to severe consequences (an increase in the number of ambulatory myocardial infarctions, mechanical complications of myocardial infarction leading to an increase in the number of cardiac arrests, unexplained deaths, heart failure, etc.). Similar consequences can be feared for all acute situations, beyond the cardiovascular disease setting.