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Inter-rater agreement and checklist validation for postoperative wound assessment using smartphone images in vascular surgery.

ABSTRACT: OBJECTIVE:Surgical site infection (SSI) is the most common nosocomial infection, in vascular surgery patients, who experience a high rate of readmission. Facilitating transition from hospital to outpatient care with digital image-based wound monitoring has the potential to detect and to enable treatment of SSI at an early stage. In this study, we evaluated whether smartphone digital images can supplant in-person evaluation of postoperative vascular surgery wounds. METHODS:We developed a wound assessment checklist using previously validated criteria. We recruited adults who underwent a vascular surgical procedure between 2014 and 2015, involving an incision of at least 3 cm, from a high-volume academic vascular surgery service. Vascular surgery care providers evaluated wounds in person using the assessment checklist; a different group of providers evaluated wounds by a smartphone digital image. Inter-rater agreement coefficients for wound characteristics and treatment plan were calculated within and between the in-person group and the digital image group; the sensitivity and specificity of digital images relative to in-person evaluation were determined. RESULTS:We assessed a total of 80 wounds. Regardless of modality, inter-rater agreement was poor when wounds were evaluated for the presence of ecchymosis and redness; moderate for cellulitis; and high for the presence of a drain, necrosis, or dehiscence. As expected, the presence of drainage was more readily observed in person. Inter-rater agreement was high for both in-person and image-based assessment with respect to course of treatment, with near-perfect agreement for treatments ranging from antibiotics to surgical débridement to hospital readmission. No difference in agreement emerged when raters evaluated poor-quality compared with high-quality images. For most parameters, specificity was higher than sensitivity for image-based compared with "gold standard" in-person assessment. CONCLUSIONS:Using smartphone digital images is a valid method for evaluating postoperative vascular surgery wounds and is comparable to in-person evaluation with regard to most wound characteristics. The inter-rater reliability for determining treatment recommendations was universally high. Remote wound monitoring and assessment may play an integral role in future transitional care models to decrease readmission for SSI in vascular or other surgical patients. These findings will inform smartphone implementation in the clinical care setting as wound images transition from informal clinical communication to becoming part of the care standard.

SUBMITTER: Wiseman JT

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4913032 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Inter-rater agreement and checklist validation for postoperative wound assessment using smartphone images in vascular surgery.

Wiseman Jason T JT Fernandes-Taylor Sara S Gunter Rebecca R Barnes Maggie L ML Saunders Richard Scott RS Rathouz Paul J PJ Yamanouchi Dai D Kent K Craig KC

Journal of vascular surgery. Venous and lymphatic disorders 20160326 3

<h4>Objective</h4>Surgical site infection (SSI) is the most common nosocomial infection, in vascular surgery patients, who experience a high rate of readmission. Facilitating transition from hospital to outpatient care with digital image-based wound monitoring has the potential to detect and to enable treatment of SSI at an early stage. In this study, we evaluated whether smartphone digital images can supplant in-person evaluation of postoperative vascular surgery wounds.<h4>Methods</h4>We devel ...[more]

PMID: 27318052

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Project description:Objectives To explore agreement among healthcare professionals assessing eligibility for work disability benefits.Design Systematic review and narrative synthesis of reproducibility studies.Data sources Medline, Embase, and PsycINFO searched up to 16 March 2016, without language restrictions, and review of bibliographies of included studies.Eligibility criteria Observational studies investigating reproducibility among healthcare professionals performing disability evaluations using a global rating of working capacity and reporting inter-rater reliability by a statistical measure or descriptively. Studies could be conducted in insurance settings, where decisions on ability to work include normative judgments based on legal considerations, or in research settings, where decisions on ability to work disregard normative considerations. : Teams of paired reviewers identified eligible studies, appraised their methodological quality and generalisability, and abstracted results with pretested forms. As heterogeneity of research designs and findings impeded a quantitative analysis, a descriptive synthesis stratified by setting (insurance or research) was performed.Results From 4562 references, 101 full text articles were reviewed. Of these, 16 studies conducted in an insurance setting and seven in a research setting, performed in 12 countries, met the inclusion criteria. Studies in the insurance setting were conducted with medical experts assessing claimants who were actual disability claimants or played by actors, hypothetical cases, or short written scenarios. Conditions were mental (n=6, 38%), musculoskeletal (n=4, 25%), or mixed (n=6, 38%). Applicability of findings from studies conducted in an insurance setting to real life evaluations ranged from generalisable (n=7, 44%) and probably generalisable (n=3, 19%) to probably not generalisable (n=6, 37%). Median inter-rater reliability among experts was 0.45 (range intraclass correlation coefficient 0.86 to κ-0.10). Inter-rater reliability was poor in six studies (37%) and excellent in only two (13%). This contrasts with studies conducted in the research setting, where the median inter-rater reliability was 0.76 (range 0.91-0.53), and 71% (5/7) studies achieved excellent inter-rater reliability. Reliability between assessing professionals was higher when the evaluation was guided by a standardised instrument (23 studies, P=0.006). No such association was detected for subjective or chronic health conditions or the studies' generalisability to real world evaluation of disability (P=0.46, 0.45, and 0.65, respectively).Conclusions Despite their common use and far reaching consequences for workers claiming disabling injury or illness, research on the reliability of medical evaluations of disability for work is limited and indicates high variation in judgments among assessing professionals. Standardising the evaluation process could improve reliability. Development and testing of instruments and structured approaches to improve reliability in evaluation of disability are urgently needed.

Project description:BackgroundSurgical site infections (SSI) represent a significant public health problem as the most common nosocomial infection and a leading cause of unplanned hospital readmissions among surgical patients. Many develop following hospital discharge and often go unrecognized by patients. Telemedicine offers the opportunity to leverage the mobile technology to remotely monitor wound recovery in the transitional period between hospital discharge and routine clinic follow-up. However, many existing telemedicine platforms are episodic, replacing routine follow-up, rather than equipped for continued monitoring; they include only low-risk patient populations and those who already have access to and comfort with the necessary technology; and transmit no visual information.ObjectiveDrawing upon the Coleman model for care transitions and the Proctor model for implementation, we propose a protocol of postoperative wound monitoring using smartphone digital images. In this study, we will establish the feasibility of such a program, both for patients and for the clinical care team.MethodsWe will recruit 40 patients or patient/caregiver pairs from our inpatient vascular surgery service. Eligible patients will be English-speaking, 18 years of age or older, and have an incision at least 3 cm in length. Participants will receive a training session, during which they will learn to use the device and the wound monitoring smartphone app. Following hospital discharge, they will submit digital images of their wound and responses to a survey about their recovery for 14 days. Experienced health care providers on the vascular surgery inpatient service will review transmitted data daily and contact patients for any concerning findings.ResultsPrimary outcomes will include participant adherence to the protocol, time required for providers to review submissions, time from submission to provider review, and participant satisfaction. Secondary outcomes will include SSI detection and hospital readmission.ConclusionsHealth systems are increasingly dedicating efforts to transitional care improvement programs. This feasibility trial will confirm whether patients and their caregivers can learn to use a postdischarge wound monitoring smartphone app and will assess patient and provider satisfaction. This protocol will provide preliminary evidence for a shift in the delivery of postdischarge care in a patient-centered and cost-effective manner.Trial registrationClinicaltrials.gov NCT02735525; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02735525 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6oIvN4Mab).

Project description:Objectives: It has been recommended that clinical trials of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) would be more ecologically valid if its characteristic mode of diagnostic reasoning were integrated into their design. In that context, however, it is also widely held that demonstrating a high level of agreement on initial TCM diagnoses is necessary for the replicability that the biomedical paradigm requires for the conclusions from such trials. Our aim was to review, summarize, and critique quantitative experimental studies of inter-rater agreement in TCM, and some of their underlying assumptions. Design: Systematic electronic searches were conducted for articles that reported a quantitative measure of inter-rater agreement across a number of rating choices based on examinations of human subjects in person by TCM practitioners, and published in English language peer-reviewed journals. Publications in languages other than English were not included, nor those appearing in other than peer-reviewed journals. Predefined categories of information were extracted from full texts by two investigators working independently. Each article was scored for methodological quality. Outcome measures: Design features across all studies and levels of inter-rater agreement across studies that reported the same type of outcome statistic were compared. Results: Twenty-one articles met inclusion criteria. Fourteen assessed inter-rater agreement on TCM diagnoses, two on diagnostic signs found upon traditional TCM examination, and five on novel rating schemes derived from TCM theory and practice. Raters were students of TCM colleges or graduates of TCM training programs with 3 or more years experience and licensure. Type of outcome statistic varied. Mean rates of pairwise agreement averaged 57% (median 65, range 19-96) across the 9 studies reporting them. Mean Cohen's kappa averaged 0.34 (median 0.34, range 0.07-0.59) across the seven studies reporting them. Meta-analysis was not possible due to variations in study design and outcome statistics. High risks of bias and confounding, and deficits in statistical reporting were common. Conclusions: With a few exceptions, the levels of agreement were low to moderate. Most studies had significant deficits of both methodology and reporting. Results overall suggest a few design features that might contribute to higher levels of agreement. These should be studied further with better experimental controls and more thorough reporting of outcomes. In addition, methods of complex systems analysis should be explored to more adequately model the relationship between clinical outcomes, and the series of diagnoses and treatments that are the norm in actual TCM practice.

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Inter-rater agreement and checklist validation for postoperative wound assessment using smartphone images in vascular surgery.

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Inter-rater agreement and checklist validation for postoperative wound assessment using smartphone images in vascular surgery.

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