Post-Implementation Outcomes of a Remote Patient Monitoring Program After Emergency Department Discharge.

To better communicate and improve post-visit outcomes, a remote patient monitoring (RPM) program was implemented for patients discharged from emergency departments (ED) across 10 hospitals. The solution was offered to patients at the time of ED discharge and staffed by a group of care coordinators to respond to questions/urgent needs. Of 107,477 consecutive patients offered RPM, 28,425 patients (26.4%) engaged with the program. Activated patients with RPM were less likely to return to the ED within 90 days of their index visit [19.8% compared to 23.6%, p<.001]. While activation rates were modest, we observed fewer return visits to the ED in patients using RPM, with a 16.2% lower hazard of returning in the next year. Future research is needed to understand methods to improve RPM activation, any causal effects of RPM activation on return ED visits, and external validation of these findings.

Anatomic correlates of deep brain stimulation electrode impedance.

BACKGROUND: The location of the optimal target for deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) remains controversial. Electrode impedance affects tissue activation by DBS and has been found to vary by contact number, but no studies have examined association between impedance and anatomic location. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the relationship between electrode impedance and anatomic contact location, and to assess the clinical significance of impedance. METHODS: We gathered retrospective impedance data from 101 electrodes in 73 patients with Parkinson's disease. We determined contact location using microelectrode recording (MER) and high-field 7T MRI, and assessed the relationship between impedance and contact location. RESULTS: For contact location as assessed via MER, impedance was significantly higher for contacts in STN, at baseline (111 Ω vs STN border, p=0.03; 169 Ω vs white matter, p<0.001) and over time (90 Ω vs STN border, p<0.001; 54 Ω vs white matter, p<0.001). Over time, impedance was lowest in contacts situated at STN border (p=0.03). Impedance did not vary by contact location as assessed via imaging. Location determination was 75% consistent between MER and imaging. Impedance was inversely related to absolute symptom reduction during stimulation (-2.5 motor portion of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (mUPDRS) points per 1000 Ω, p=0.01). CONCLUSIONS: In the vicinity of DBS electrodes chronically implanted in STN, impedance is lower at the rostral STN border and in white matter, than in STN. This finding suggests that current reaches white matter fibres more readily than neuronal cell bodies in STN, which may help explain anatomic variation in stimulation efficacy.

Hybrid cognitive behavioral therapy versus relaxation training for co-occurring anxiety and alcohol disorder: a randomized clinical trial.

OBJECTIVE: Treatment for alcohol use disorder (AUD) is far less effective for those with a co-occurring anxiety disorder. Surprisingly, adding an independent anxiety treatment to AUD treatment does not substantially improve the poor alcohol outcomes of these patients. This may reflect the lack of attention from independent treatments to the dynamic interaction of anxiety symptoms with alcohol use and drinking motivation. On the basis of this view, we assembled a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) program designed to both reduce anxiety symptoms and weaken the links between the experience of anxiety and the motivation to drink. METHOD: 344 patients undergoing residential AUD treatment with current social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, or panic disorder were randomly assigned to receive either the CBT or an active comparison treatment, progressive muscle relaxation training (PMRT). Assessments took place immediately following treatment and 4 months later (n = 247). RESULTS: As predicted, the CBT group demonstrated significantly better alcohol outcomes 4 months following treatment than did the PMRT group. Although both groups experienced a substantial degree of anxiety reduction following treatment, there were no significant group differences immediately after treatment and only a slight advantage for the CBT group 4 months after treatment. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that specific interventions aimed at weakening the association between the experience of anxiety and drinking motivation play an important role in improving the alcohol outcomes of these difficult-to-treat patients beyond that of anxiety reduction alone.

Greater elevation in risk for nicotine dependence per pack of cigarettes smoked among those with an anxiety disorder.

OBJECTIVE: Recent work shows that the time from the initial use of nicotine, cannabis, and alcohol to the onset of dependence on these substances is shorter ("telescoped") in anxiety-disordered individuals. Previously, we hypothesized that telescoping may result from a shared neurobiology underlying both anxiety disorders and dependence. This hypothesis implies that telescoping occurs because individuals with an anxiety disorder transition to dependence with less overall drug exposure ("dependence susceptibility"). To investigate this further, we examined an estimate of the amount smoked (rather than the time transpired) from smoking initiation milestones to the onset of nicotine dependence in those with and without an anxiety disorder. METHOD: We used the subset of respondents in the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) Wave 1 who reported having smoked at least 100 cigarettes (N = 18,013). All data were based on face-to-face interviews. RESULTS: Individuals with any anxiety disorder transitioned to nicotine dependence after smoking fewer total cigarettes than did individuals with no anxiety disorder. Furthermore, those with more than one anxiety disorder transitioned to nicotine dependence after smoking fewer cigarettes than did those with one anxiety disorder only. Several potentially confounding covariates were controlled for in these analyses. CONCLUSIONS: Dependence susceptibility is a novel concept with the potential to inform theoretical accounts of and prevention strategies for substance dependence among those with an anxiety disorder. In addition to nicotine, our theory and past data suggest that dependence susceptibility for other addictive substances (e.g., alcohol) also would be found among those with an anxiety disorder.

Meta-analysis of supplemental treatment for depressive and anxiety disorders in patients being treated for alcohol dependence.

Approximately half of those receiving treatment for an alcohol use disorder (AUD) also suffer with an anxiety or depressive (internalizing) disorder. Because all internalizing disorders mark a poor alcohol treatment outcome, it seems reasonable to supplement AUD treatment with a psychiatric intervention when these disorders co-occur with AUD. However, this conclusion may be faulty given that the various possible interrelationships between AUD and internalizing disorders do not uniformly imply a high therapeutic yield from this approach. Unfortunately, the studies conducted to date have been too few and too small to resolve this important clinical issue with confidence. Therefore, we used a meta-analytic method to synthesize the effects from published randomized controlled trials examining the impact of supplementing AUD treatment with a psychiatric treatment for co-occurring internalizing disorder (N = 15). We found a pooled effect size (d) of .32 for internalizing outcomes and .22 for a composite of alcohol outcomes; however, the alcohol outcomes effect sizes were greater than this for some specific outcome domains. Subgroups that differed in terms of internalizing outcomes included treatment type (medication vs. cognitive behavioral therapy) and treatment focus (anxiety vs. depression). There was also a trend for the studies with better internalizing disorder outcomes to have better alcohol outcomes. These results indicate that clinical outcomes (both psychiatric and alcohol-related) could be somewhat improved by supplementing AUD treatment with psychiatric treatment for co-occurring internalizing disorder.