Background: Patients hospitalized with COVID-19 can clinically deteriorate in the second week of illness after a period of initial stability. Thus, an important clinical question is determining when it is safe to discharge these patients from the hospital without overwhelming hospitals’ capacities. Unfortunately, discharge criteria for COVID-19 patients are often based on expert opinion, with […]

Background: Hospitalizations to treat SARS-CoV-2 infected patients have strained health systems worldwide. Monitored outpatient management of select low-risk COVID-19 patients with isolated exertional hypoxia could help preserve hospital resources and reduce costs while aiming to maintain a high standard of care. In this retrospective cohort analysis, we aimed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of […]

Background: Early risk stratification scores utilizing data available at the bedside have been used regularly to identify patients at greatest risk of poor outcomes from rapidly evolving conditions like sepsis. Little is known about how point-of-care scores developed for sepsis perform at predicting outcomes in large, heterogeneous cohorts of patients with COVID-19. Our objective was […]

Background: Obesity increases the risk of severe illness, hospitalizations, and death from most acute illnesses – particularly infectious diseases. (1,2) African American communities have been greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and are disproportionately impacted by the obesity epidemic in this country. (3, 4) However, little is known of their knowledge and attitudes related to […]

Background: Elevated proinflammatory cytokines, including IL-6, are associated with significant morbidity and mortality in COVID-19, and it is hypothesized that blocking the inflammatory pathway may prevent disease progression[1]. IL 6 inhibitors were proposed as a treatment option for hospitalized patients to improve patient-centered outcomes[1]. Few studies that investigated the safety of tocilizumab showed heterogeneous results[2,3]. […]

Background: Falls are the most common cause of nonfatal trauma-related hospital admissions among older adults. The objective of this study was to determine whether the quarantine/lockdown elicited by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic led to a change in the incidence of falls in geriatric patients between March 2020 – December 2020 compared to March 2019 – December […]

Background: Obesity is associated with many cardiopulmonary comorbidities independently associated with worse health outcomes in acute illness, yet the physiological mechanisms potentially making obese patients more susceptible to COVID-19 remain uncertain. Adiposity-derived immunosuppression, increased thrombogenic potential, and predilection towards inflammatory hyperreactivity have all been postulated as potential mediators of this phenomenon. Yet, the most obvious […]

Background: The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused a staggering 200 million cases with over 4 million deaths globally as of August 2021. COVID-19 is associated with lung inflammation and pulmonary fibrosis. Inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) are used to improve lung function by reducing inflammation, edema, mucus secretion, and inhibiting various cytokine activities. However, there is […]

Background: Evidence-based COVID-19 management has evolved with unprecedented speed; however, the rate and fidelity with which institutions have adopted new evidence into practice is unknown. Methods: We surveyed members of the Hospital Medicine Reengineering Network (HOMERuN) from 12/17/20-2/10/21 and compared their institutional COVID-19 management recommendations to available evidence from pivotal randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and […]

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented changes to the way healthcare is delivered. While the impact of death and comorbidity due to infections with SARS-CoV-2 is a ubiquitous concern, it is unclear what effect this pandemic is having on hospitalized patients who are not infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. We seek to estimate the […]