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: Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is a common, often nosocomial infection associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. Antibiotics are the most important modifiable risk factor, but empiric antibiotics remain appropriate for many patients with severe acute illness. Which antibiotics minimize the risk of CDI remains an important unanswered question. Because protective equipment and isolation were […]

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: Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) is defined as the presence of ≥5% of hepatic steatosis (HS) in the absence of other liver disorders, such as chronic viral or autoimmune hepatitis, steatosis induced by drugs, significant alcohol consumption, hemochromatosis, or Wilson’s disease. There is limited literature describing national prevalence and epidemiological characteristics of NAFLD in […]

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: Osteomyelitis is an acute or chronic infection of the bone structures which can be caused by either bacteria, fungi, or mycobacteria. Studies have reported a high annual incident of about 1 in 675 hospital admission in the United States. The overall incident is higher in the male population for reasons unclear and increases with […]

Background: Patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD) are at significantly increased risk for both thrombosis and bleeding relative to those with normal renal function, which makes anticoagulation particularly challenging. Evidence suggests that rivaroxaban and dabigatran are associated with a higher risk of bleeding in ESRD patients. To date, no large national cohort studies have […]

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: Peripheral intravenous catheters (PIVs) are the most frequently used invasive devices in hospitalized patients. Recent evidence has shown that these devices are not benign, and put patients at risk of serious bloodstream infections as well as other complications. Given their ubiquity, PIVs do not exist independently, and are used in a diverse set of […]