Hospital Medicine Alert – June 1, 2016
June 1, 2016
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One Quarter of General Medicine Readmissions May Be Preventable
The major concept behind the effort to reduce 30-day readmission rates is the impression that some readmissions are preventable and some are not preventable.
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Postoperative Atrial Fibrillation Management — You Can’t Go Wrong
Rate control and rhythm control strategies for cardiac surgery patients with postoperative atrial fibrillation lead to similar hospital durations, similar complication rates, and similar very low rates of atrial fibrillation at 60-day follow-up.
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Is Anticoagulant Bridging Needed in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation Going to Surgery?
In patients with atrial fibrillation who had warfarin treatment interrupted for an elective operation or other elective invasive procedure, forgoing bridging anticoagulation was not inferior to perioperative bridging with low molecular weight heparin for the prevention of arterial thromboembolism and decreased the risk of major bleeding.
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ICH May Clinically Mimic TIA
In a large retrospective review of 2137 patients with intracerebral hemorrhage, 34 had transient symptoms that could have been misclassified as “transient ischemic attack” if brain imaging had not been performed.
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Cardiovascular Events Associated with Masked Hypertension and White-coat Hypertension
Analysis from the Dallas Heart Study consisting of 3027 adults revealed that both white-coat hypertension and masked hypertension were independently associated with increased cardiovascular events, and, therefore, home blood pressure monitoring is recommended for U.S. adults, whether symptomatic or asymptomatic.