Background: Anemia is a common medical problem in hospitalized patients. For several decades parenteral iron was available only as high molecular iron dextran preparations which were associated with frequent serious adverse reactions including anaphylaxis. Despite the introduction of safe intravenous (IV) iron formulations in the last two decades many clinicians still perceive them as dangerous […]

Background: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently changed observation and inpatient status determination from a decision based on clinical criteria to one based on time spent under care. Effective October 1, 2013, encounters ≥ 2 midnights should be inpatient, and those < 2 midnights, with rare exceptions, should be observation. It is […]

Background: Care following cardiac arrest includes therapy to support the patient as well as identification of the cause of arrest. It is unclear whether or not a screening cranial computed tomography (CT scan) is necessary in the immediate post‐arrest period as there are no guideline recommendations for the use of such testing. We examined whether […]

Background: Current guidelines recommend stress ulcer prophylaxis (SUP) to reduce the risk of an upper gastrointestinal bleed (GIB) in hospitalized patients with coagulopathy, defined as an international normalized ratio (INR) > 1.5 or a platelet count < 50,000/microliter (uL). Typically INR and platelet count are reliable markers for increased bleed risk, specifically stress related GIB. […]

Background: Research from the Health Protection Agency identified 394 surgical site infections among 4,107 women followed up after a Caesarean section (C‐section) operation (9.6%). The majority of these infections were minor (88%) and the risk was found to be higher in overweight or obese women. The puropose of this study is to evaluate a single […]

Background: Proper wound fluid management is key in the management of a wound. The purpose of this study is to evaluate a hydroellular foam with a silicone adhesive for a variety of parameters on wide range of wound types including DFUs. Methods: n=56, an open, prospective, non‐comparative clinical in‐market evaluation across 29 centres in UK, […]

Background: In 2010, there were approximately 26 million people in the US with diabetes and ranked as the seventh leading cause of death. Over 85% of lower limb amputations in patients with diabetes are preceded by ulceration. The purpose of this study is review data from patients treated with a bio‐engineered dermal tissue construct to […]

Background: The HEART (History, ECG, Age, Risk factors and Troponin) score was recently shown to be potentially useful in identifying patients presenting with chest pain with a very low pretest probability of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and where further testing may not be beneficial. However, all of the previous studies relied on the investigators’ retrospective […]

Background: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) exacerbation is a common clinical condition that requires hospitalization. However, identifying which patients would be appropriate for a short stay in an observation unit versus an inpatient admission has not been well established. The aim of this study was to determine which patient characteristics and clinical findings are associated […]

Background: The observation unit is a growing part of many hospitals and is typically where most patients from the emergency department (ED) are referred to evaluate low‐risk chest pain. Various tools for risk stratification of chest pain have been developed for use in the ED, but these tools have rarely been evaluated in the observation […]