Michael Anderson’s Post

7 million patient records show who is at risk of long #COVID In the first research of its kind in Australia, an analysis of 7 million patient records shows that females are more likely to be diagnosed with long COVID than males. Patients with a long COVID diagnosis are also likely to be aged 40-59, of a high socioeconomic status or have a preexisting condition such as mental health, respiratory (such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), cancer or musculoskeletal (such as arthritis). The study published today in the Medical Journal of Australia found there are associations between socioeconomic factors and preexisting health conditions for people diagnosed with long COVID. Project lead, Professor Andrew Georgiou from the Australian Institute of Health Innovation at Macquarie University, said “Improving our understanding of long COVID, including who is being diagnosed, is vital to enhancing patient access to appropriate care, services and treatment.” Of those diagnosed with long COVID in the study, 29% had a previously diagnosed mental health condition, 20% had a respiratory condition, and 17.8% had a musculoskeletal condition. Annette Schmiede, CEO of the Digital Health CRC said the extent and depth of this research, drawing on 7 million patient records, provides valuable insights into the prevalence and impact of long COVID. “We still know very little about long COVID and as such collaborations like this are critical to deepen our understanding of the symptoms and ultimately provide better care to the growing number of Australians that experience long COVID,” Ms Schmiede said. The research is the most comprehensive undertaken in Australia including data from 869 general practice clinics in four primary health networks (PHN) in New South Wales and Victoria – representing approximately 60% of the Victorian and 43% of the NSW populations. The PHNs included are Central and Eastern Sydney PHN, South Western Sydney PHN, South Eastern Melbourne Primary Health Network, and Eastern Melbourne PHN. Abbish Kamalakkannan, Mirela Prgomet, Judith Thomas, Chris Pearce, Precious McGuire, Fiona Mackintosh https://lnkd.in/gbsFNEpK

📃 Prognostic Factors Associated With Survival Distribution of Admission to Delayed Rapid Response Team Activation Among Deteriorating Patients: A Retrospective Study. Rapid response team delays impact patient outcomes. 🏥 A recent study identifies key prognostic factors for timely activation. ⏳ https://lnkd.in/dpuk2MeZ

🌟 Rare often means unknown in the world of healthcare. It can take up to 5 years navigating the healthcare system to get a rare disease diagnosis. While there are multiple reasons for this delay, health care professionals limited knowledge of rare diseases can contribute. As a result, a person living with a rare disease often needs to self-advocate and use their own resources to get the disease knowledge & support they need so they can explain their condition to health care professionals. To enable access to expert rare disease health care professionals, the NHS commissions rare disease care and management through Highly Specialised Services. These services are centralized in a few hospitals to concentrate expertise and resources and care is delivered through multidisciplinary teams including various specialists working together to provide comprehensive care. These national commissioned services aim to deliver consistent standards and equitable access to care across the country. One of these services, the National Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes service recently published ‘self-advocacy' survey results describing how patients connected with the service advocate for themselves, get their needs met alone and with support from their HCPs. 🔑 Eight self-advocacy domains were identified: 1. Knowledge & knowledge sharing of rare disease 2. Mental well-being & access to counselling 3. Routine medical care/physical well-being 4. Developing good working relationships aided by knowledge sharing between patients and HCPs 5. Easy access to information both digitally and in print. 6. Preparing for potential emergency situation 7. Education/outreach including increasing health professional awareness and knowledge about rare diseases. 8. Involvement in research & providing insights feedback to improve patient care and outcomes. 📈 Impact: This publications showcases how highly specialised services can implement and support patient self-advocacy. While each rare disease has its own unique features, this information may be applicable to people living with other rare disease as challenges faced maybe similar. 📚 Read the full article here. #Raredisease #PatientAdvocacy

Research reveals a disconnect between patient expectations and care for long COVID By American Academy of Family Physicians Background and goal: "Long COVID" is the continuation or development of new symptoms three months after initial SARS-CoV-2 infection. For many patients with long COVID, primary care is the first point of interaction with the health care system. This study aimed to examine the expectations and experiences of primary care patients seeking treatment for long COVID. Study approach: Researchers conducted 20 semistructured interviews between 2022 and 2023 with primary care patients from a long COVID triage clinic at the University of Utah. Using a phenomenological framework, the interviews focused on understanding and describing participants' lived experiences and perceptions through open-ended, flexible questioning. The interviews were analyzed using inductive qualitative content analysis, a method that identifies themes and patterns in the data. Main results: --- 19 interviews were analyzed. Participants averaged 54 years old, and 53% were female. Most participants were infected with COVID-19 for the first time in 2020 (32%) or 2021 (47%). --- Patient expectations: Patients expected their primary care practitioners to be knowledgeable about post-COVID conditions, attentive to their individual condition, and to engage in collaborative processes for treatment. --- Patient experiences: Participants perceived their interactions with practitioners as negative when they felt dismissed or discouraged. Patients also described challenges navigating the fragmented U.S. health care system when coordinating care, treatment and testing, and payment. Why it matters: The study results highlight a disconnect between the expectations and experiences of long-COVID patients within the U.S. health care system. Despite facing numerous barriers and frustrations, patients show a desire to collaborate with clinicians to improve treatment outcomes. Please click on the image in the banner below to access entire piece. Posted by Larry Cole Executive Director of Covid Impact 360

It is World Patient Safety Day today!  The WHO’s theme for this year is "Improving diagnosis for patient safety", and at Axios International, we cannot emphasize enough the importance of accurate and timely access to diagnosis.    Axios’ Access to Diagnosis solutions empowers individuals and providers by addressing the needs related to disease management while contributing to strengthening the healthcare ecosystem. These solutions are designed to help individuals become aware of their conditions and get tested early in their treatment journey. Through our collaborative Patient Support Programs (PSPs) and Patient Assistance Programs (PAPs), we conduct disease education and awareness sessions, diagnostic camps, toll free carelines, health camps, care navigation, diagnostic test support, general health or routine health assessments and peer-to-peer program. We facilitate these services especially for patients suffering from conditions related to HCV, oncology, cardiology, hematology, endocrinology, rare diseases and more.   Through our diverse range of Access to Diagnosis solutions, we strive to expedite disease prevention and treatment, perfectly aligning with this year’s slogan "Get it right, make it safe". We are always seeking new ways to improve access to healthcare pathways for accurate diagnoses and accessible treatments.   To learn more about our access to diagnosis solutions, write to us at [email protected]   #WorldPatientSafetyDay #PatientsFirst #PatientSafety #AccesstoDiagnosis 

Great Brazilian Real-world data study published this week! It is probably the biggest study oriented to report the cost information (with the private payer perspective) of Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease in our country. Starting the search from data of more than 6 million individuals, it was possible to measure that patients in primary prevention require much more outpatient care and account for a mean anual cost of US$3,500 and those on secondary prevention require much more hospitalizations and account for an anual mean cost US$ 8,200. Those numbers highlight the value -with all meaning that this work has- of investing efforts in cardiovascular prevention to avoid secondary events that impact people survival rate, quality of life and financial burden of healthcare systems. Congratulations to our national colleagues behind this landmark study! Diego Ribeiro Garcia Full paper: https://lnkd.in/dqzdkw2e

📰🗞 "ICU patients have higher mortality with blood glucose level above 190 mg/dL" 📰🗞 Multicenter study on close to 300 patients which was recently published, found a blood glucose 🩸 level of > 190 mg/dL (10.5 mmol/l) to be associated with higher in-hospital 🏥 mortality amongst critically ill patients #icu #internalmedicine #diabetesmellitus #hypeeglycaemia #cardiovascularmedicine #americandiabetesassociation.

🔍💊 Exciting Findings on Polypharmacy 💊🔍 📢 Delighted to share insights from our latest study examining how Potentially Inappropriate Medications (PIMs) contribute to the link between polypharmacy and mortality among middle-aged patients! 🔬 Background: While the role of PIMs in mortality among older adults is well-documented, their effect on middle-aged individuals has been less explored. 🎯 Objective: We aimed to estimate PIM-associated risk of mortality and understand how PIMs contribute to associations between polypharmacy and mortality in middle-aged patients. 📊 Key Results: Setting up an observational cohort study with data from over 700,000 patients, we found that PIMs were independently associated with increased mortality risk. Moreover, PIMs partially explained the mortality risk associated with polypharmacy and hyperpolypharmacy in this age group. 🌟 Implications: These findings show the importance of addressing medication appropriateness, even in younger patient populations. They highlight the need for further research into the complexities of polypharmacy, especially the other mechanisms of injury. 📚 Take a look at our article for a comprehensive understanding of our findings! https://lnkd.in/ghs3ncHV

For those who have asked me about the policy work I have been doing in the Alzheimer’s disease space, here is the PubMed link to my first, first-author paper, titled “Diagnostic Hesitancy of Primary Care Physicians in Puerto Rico Towards Alzheimer’s Disease: Opportunities for Transformation”, published in September. The findings of this study, with 100+ Puerto Rican PCPs, highlights the need to better prepare for the challenges of diagnosis and management of ADRD, when the “brain drain” of specialists is putting Puerto Rican PCPs at the helm of dealing with a growing ADRD epidemic. Addressing challenges faced by PCPs in diagnosing and managing ADRD is essential to ensure timely and accurate diagnosis –and appropriate care–for people living with the disease. National Institute on Aging (NIA) https://lnkd.in/g6KkAx-2

With hurricanes becoming more common in our territories, we face different challenges depending on what kind of chronic illness patient we are. As someone living with an organ transplant, my main concerns are related to drug supply and access to clean water and power for heat/AC. However, as chief medical officer focused on the renal care market, I focus on patients who are still on dialysis without the immediate hope for a transplant. For them there are many more risks to bad weather: Missing dialysis leads to electrolyte disruption and fluid overload and without nutrition support, they face increased risk of mortality and morbidity. In fact, any one missed dialysis session doubles the risk for dying over the following 30 days, and increases hospitalization by 40 percent. Of course the numbers are not huge, but the risk of dying over one year in the group that misses only one dialysis session is 11.48 per 100 patient-years, vs 5.25 per 100 patient-years. This data comes from a study by Dr Steven Brunelli (DaVita), and published here: https://lnkd.in/eeQtB-VY The impact on Florida in the next few days might be immense, as it was on NC a few weeks ago. For these patients, it is not just about losing power in your home as an inconvenience, it is life-threatening. #dialysis #kidneydisease #kidneyfailure #transplant Patient Care America Lyfebulb Phil Keough Andy Helfan Tim Fitzpatrick Kevin Weinstein DaVita Kidney Care Vanessa Evans Tom Mueller Leslie Simmons Brille