Articles Tagged With:
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Current Recommendations for Childhood Respiratory Vaccines
Amidst prevalent vaccine hesitancy, changing governmental advisory groups, and altered recommendations, COVID immunization still is recommended for all children aged 6 through 23 months and for older children with medical risk factors.
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Surge in Patients Leaving Against Medical Advice: Ethicist Involvement Needed
Hospitals are seeing a rise in patients leaving against medical advice (AMA), creating ethical challenges around autonomy, beneficence, and stigma. Ethicists can guide clinicians in assessing decision-making capacity, reducing bias, supporting continuity of care, and addressing systemic causes behind AMA discharges.
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Social Media Posts Create Risk, Can Require Discipline
Recent events have shown the risks posed to healthcare employers by social media posts that inflame controversial issues or denigrate patients. Hospitals and health systems are well within their rights to take disciplinary action against employees who post offensive material on social media
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The Seasonal Surge: Influenza in the ED
Influenza outbreaks occur each year, with their nature and extent largely determined by the virus’s glycoprotein structure and antigenic properties. These outbreaks typically occur during the winter months and can confer high morbidity to the general patient population. Increased mortality rates are seen in children younger than 5 years of age, older adults, and those with chronic comorbid medical conditions.
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Psychiatric Medications and Long QT Syndrome: A Safe Combination?
A retrospective study of patients with electrocardiogram long QT interval syndrome and psychiatric disease suggests that with proper pharmacologic treatment and counseling, the patients can be treated safely with psychiatric drugs known to increase the QT interval.
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Preventing Ventricular Arrhythmias with Potassium
A Danish randomized trial of augmenting serum potassium by diet or medications compared to usual care in patients with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) has shown that modest increases in potassium resulted in a reduction in the composite endpoint of appropriate ICD therapy or hospitalizations for arrhythmias or heart failure, or death.
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Is Anticoagulation Necessary in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension?
A large French national registry observational study of the use of anticoagulants in patients with pulmonary artery hypertension of diverse etiologies enrolled over 11 years, and a meta-analysis of this study and four other national registry studies, showed that there was no association between anticoagulant use and survival.
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Efficacy of Adding Aspirin to OACs for CAD Patients
A randomized, placebo-controlled trial of adding aspirin to oral anticoagulant therapy in patients with chronic coronary artery disease at high risk of atherothrombotic complications and major bleeding was stopped early because aspirin increased the risk of all-cause mortality. In addition, aspirin was associated with an increase in atherothrombotic complications and major bleeding.
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Mechanical Aspiration for RSIE: Finally, Some Data to Inform a Growing Practice
In this registry of patients undergoing mechanical aspiration for right-sided infective endocarditis, technical success rates were high, with a modest but significant rate of procedural complications. Further research with randomized trials will be needed to better define proper patient selection.
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The Proton Pump Inhibitor Use and Hypertension Link in Menopausal Women
In a large study, long-term use of proton pump inhibitors in menopausal women was associated with an increased risk of developing hypertension.