Background: Hospital-acquired C. difficile colitis is associated with increased length of stay (LOS) and significant morbidity and mortality. During hospitalization, patients visit many procedural, diagnostic, and treatment areas throughout the hospital, presenting opportunities for spore contamination of surfaces and nosocomial disease transmission. We developed a novel methodology using electronic health record (EHR) data to map [...]

Background: Hospital-acquired C. difficile colitis is associated with increased length of stay (LOS) and significant morbidity and mortality. During hospitalization, patients visit many procedural, diagnostic, and treatment areas throughout the hospital, presenting opportunities for spore contamination of surfaces and nosocomial disease transmission. We developed a novel methodology using electronic health record (EHR) data to map [...]

Background: Delirium is a common and costly occurrence in hospitalized patients, particularly elderly patients. Diagnosing delirium can be challenging, particularly given the fluctuating nature of presentation and subtle hypoactive motor subtypes. The Brief Confusion Assessment Method (bCAM) is a delirium screening tool that has been validated for use in the med-surg clinical area. As part [...]

Background: Depending on the criterion applied, the systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) criteria and the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) criteria initially identify distinct populations that present to the emergency department (ED) with suspected sepsis (Prasad et al., SHM 2018). Our work has shown that 52% of patients meet SIRS criteria first and 48% meet [...]

Background: Healthcare research has traditionally relied upon data collected from clinical trials and data generated from patient registries and insurance claims to drive analyses. As electronic health records (EHR) and computerized physician order entry have proliferated, large quantities of healthcare data is being generated daily through their routine use. A form of “big data,” this [...]

Background: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) exacerbations result in significant morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs. Understanding regional differences in clinical outcomes and healthcare utilization among patients hospitalized with COPD may provide insight into best practices in caring for this vulnerable patient population. Methods: Using the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) database for the years 2016 to [...]

Background: Patients with acute severe asthma exacerbations that are unresponsive to standard therapy are said to be in status asthmaticus (SA). Patients with SA need hospitalization and are at risk of considerable morbidity and mortality along with high healthcare costs. Understanding regional differences in clinical outcomes and healthcare utilization among patients hospitalized with SA may [...]