Project description:As the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, we as health care professionals thrive to continue to help our patients, and as orthopedic surgeons, this goal is ever more challenging. As part of a major academic tertiary medical center in New York City, the orthopedic department at New York University (NYU) Langone Health has evolved and adapted to meet the challenges of the COVID pandemic. In our report, we will detail the different aspects and actions taken by NYU Langone Health as well as NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital and the orthopedic department in particular. Among the steps taken, the department has reconfigured its staff's assignments to help both with the institution's efforts and our patients' needs from reassigning operating room nurses to medical COVID floors to having attending surgeons cover urgent care locations. We have reorganized our residency and fellowship rotations and assignments as well as adapting our educational programs to online learning. While constantly evolving to meet the institution's and our patient demands, our leadership starts planning for the return to a new "normal".
Project description:BackgroundCOVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has sickened millions and killed hundreds of thousands as of June 2020. New York City was affected gravely. Our hospital, a specialty orthopedic hospital unaccustomed to large volumes of patients with life-threatening respiratory infections, underwent rapid adaptation to care for COVID-19 patients in response to emergency surge conditions at neighboring hospitals.PurposesWe sought to determine the attributes, pharmacologic and other treatments, and clinical course in the cohort of patients with COVID-19 who were admitted to our hospital at the height of the pandemic in April 2020 in New York City.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective observational cohort study of all patients admitted between April 1 and April 21, 2020, who had a diagnosis of COVID-19. Data were gathered from the electronic health record and by manual chart abstraction.ResultsOf the 148 patients admitted with COVID-19 (mean age, 62 years), ten patients died. There were no deaths among non-critically ill patients transferred from other hospitals, while 26% of those with critical illness died. A subset of COVID-19 patients was admitted for orthopedic and medical conditions other than COVID-19, and some of these patients required intensive care and ventilatory support.ConclusionProfessional and organizational flexibility during pandemic conditions allowed a specialty orthopedic hospital to provide excellent care in a global public health emergency.
Project description:BACKGROUND: Limited time and funding are challenges to meeting the research requirement of the orthopedic residency curriculum. OBJECTIVE: We report a reorganized research curriculum that increases research quality and productivity at our academic orthopedic medical center. METHODS: Changes made to the curriculum, which began in 2006 and were fully phased in by 2008, included research milestones for each training year, a built-in support structure, use of an accredited bio-skills laboratory, mentoring by National Institutes of Health-funded scientists, and protected time to engage in required research and prepare scholarly peer-reviewed publications. RESULTS: Total grant funding of resident research increased substantially, from $15,000 in 2007 (8 graduates) to $380,000 in 2010 (9 graduates), and the number of publications also increased. The 12 residents who graduated in 2005 published 16 papers from 2000 to 2006, compared to 84 papers published by the 9 residents who graduated in 2010. The approximate costs per year included $19,000 (0.3 full-time equivalent) for an academic research coordinator; $16,000 for resident travel to professional meetings; reimbursement for 213 faculty hours; and funding for resident salaries while on the research rotation, paid through the general hospital budget. CONCLUSIONS: The number of grants and peer-reviewed publications increased considerably after our residency research curriculum was reorganized to allow dedicated research time and improved mentoring and infrastructure.
Project description:ObjectiveTo create a roster that eliminated unnecessary cross-staff exposure to ensure the hospital had sufficient staff to run the ED in the event that a group of staff are affected by COVID-19. This roster was aimed at providing staff with 'manageable shift lengths, down-time between shifts, regular breaks and access to refreshments' as dictated by the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services.MethodsCreating six fixed teams in our ED. Teams work blocks of three consecutive days of 12 h shifts, each block alternates between day and night shifts.ResultsWe managed to completely eliminate unnecessary crossover of staff thus reducing risk of having a large part of our workforce incapacitated should any member be affected by COVID.ConclusionA pandemic roster plan to minimise staff exposure from other colleagues during a pandemic was possible. This helps to ensure an adequate workforce in the unfortunate event a staff contracts the disease leading to other close contact staff requiring isolation or succumbing to the same illness.
Project description:BACKGROUND:Data are lacking on the proportion of physicians who face malpractice claims in a year, the size of those claims, and the cumulative career malpractice risk according to specialty. METHODS:We analyzed malpractice data from 1991 through 2005 for all physicians who were covered by a large professional liability insurer with a nationwide client base (40,916 physicians and 233,738 physician-years of coverage). For 25 specialties, we reported the proportion of physicians who had malpractice claims in a year, the proportion of claims leading to an indemnity payment (compensation paid to a plaintiff), and the size of indemnity payments. We estimated the cumulative risk of ever being sued among physicians in high- and low-risk specialties. RESULTS:Each year during the study period, 7.4% of all physicians had a malpractice claim, with 1.6% having a claim leading to a payment (i.e., 78% of all claims did not result in payments to claimants). The proportion of physicians facing a claim each year ranged from 19.1% in neurosurgery, 18.9% in thoracic-cardiovascular surgery, and 15.3% in general surgery to 5.2% in family medicine, 3.1% in pediatrics, and 2.6% in psychiatry. The mean indemnity payment was $274,887, and the median was $111,749. Mean payments ranged from $117,832 for dermatology to $520,923 for pediatrics. It was estimated that by the age of 65 years, 75% of physicians in low-risk specialties had faced a malpractice claim, as compared with 99% of physicians in high-risk specialties. CONCLUSIONS:There is substantial variation in the likelihood of malpractice suits and the size of indemnity payments across specialties. The cumulative risk of facing a malpractice claim is high in all specialties, although most claims do not lead to payments to plaintiffs. (Funded by the RAND Institute for Civil Justice and the National Institute on Aging.).
Project description:ObjectivePhysician assistant (PA) and nurse practitioner (NP) staffing is increasingly common in emergency departments (EDs), with variable physician supervision. We examined the feasibility of using publicly reported metrics as a measure of ED performance by staffing model.MethodsWe classified a convenience sample of 915 EDs by staffing model using the National Emergency Department Inventory-USA 2016 and a follow-up survey. Staffing models included 24/7 attending coverage with PAs/NPs, 24/7 attending coverage without PAs/NPs, and PAs/NPs without 24/7 attending coverage. We linked EDs with Hospital Compare data to examine availability of metrics and compared metric performance by staffing model. We used regression modeling to examine the independent relationship between staffing model and ED performance after adjusting for ED characteristics.ResultsOf 915 EDs surveyed, 767 (83%) responded and 436 (48%) had complete staffing data and any Hospital Compare data. The 216 EDs without any Hospital Compare data more frequently had no 24/7 attending coverage, were smaller, and were more often rural. Of 5 clinical metrics, 3 had data from < 100 EDs (range: 2%-21%), and 2 had data from 0 EDs. Of the 5 clinical metrics, only median time-to-ECG had enough data for analysis and found no difference among staffing models. Among the 3 process metrics, only time to discharge was significantly faster in EDs with any PA/NP staffing.ConclusionMany EDs in our national sample lacked sufficient Hospital Compare data to evaluate performance, likely because of lower patient volumes for condition-specific metrics. Alternative strategies to measure quality of care delivery in these settings should be developed.
Project description:BackgroundThe coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has had a massive impact on individuals globally. The Chinese government has formulated effective response measures, and medical personnel have been actively responding to challenges associated with the epidemic prevention and control strategies. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of the implementation of a care transition pathway on patients that underwent joint replacement during the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsA quasi-experimental study was designed to evaluate the effect of implementing a care transition pathway for patients who underwent joint replacement during the COVID-19 pandemic in the orthopedic department of a tertiary care hospital in Beijing, China. Using a convenient sampling method, a total of 96 patients were selected. Of these, 51 patients who had undergone joint replacement in 2019 and received treatment via the routine nursing path were included in the control group. The remaining 45 patients who underwent joint replacement during the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020 and received therapy via the care transition pathway due to the implementation of epidemic prevention and control measures were included in the observation group. The quality of care transition was assessed by the Care Transition Measure (CTM), and patients were followed up 1 week after discharge.ResultsThe observation group was determined to have better general self-care preparation, written planning materials, doctor-patient communication, health monitoring, and quality of care transition than the control group.ConclusionsA care transition pathway was developed to provide patients with care while transitioning through periods of treatment. It improved the patient perceptions of nursing quality. The COVID-19 pandemic is a huge challenge for health professionals, but we have the ability to improve features of workflows to provide the best possible patient care.