JAMA internal medicine
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Advanced dementia is characterized by severe cognitive impairment and complete functional dependence. Patients' goals of care should guide the prescribing of medication during such terminal illness. Medications that do not promote the primary goal of care should be minimized. ⋯ Most nursing home residents with advanced dementia receive medications with questionable benefit that incur substantial associated costs.
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JAMA internal medicine · Nov 2014
Assessing the safety and effectiveness of devices after US Food and Drug Administration approval: FDA-mandated postapproval studies.
Postmarketing surveillance is critical to evaluating the safety and effectiveness of medical devices. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may order the manufacturer of a high-risk device to conduct postmarketing surveillance studies, known as postapproval studies (PASs), at the time of approval. ⋯ Postapproval studies have the potential to provide additional information to better understand medical device performance. However, small sample sizes, delays in reaching protocol agreement, and lack of availability of findings may hinder their ability to be clinically useful. Owing to the lack of information on the effect of studies, it is unclear whether the program achieves its aims. Improved completion and accessibility of PASs could help answer important questions of safety and effectiveness about medical devices. To better understand the real-world performance of these products, they should be better integrated with other sources of information about device performance.
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JAMA internal medicine · Nov 2014
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative StudyBrief intervention for patients with problematic drug use presenting in emergency departments: a randomized clinical trial.
Medical treatment settings such as emergency departments (EDs) present important opportunities to address problematic substance use. Currently, EDs do not typically intervene beyond acute medical stabilization. ⋯ In this sample of drug users seeking emergency medical treatment, a relatively robust brief intervention did not improve substance use outcomes. More work is needed to determine how drug use disorders may be addressed effectively in the ED.
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JAMA internal medicine · Nov 2014
Association between arterial catheter use and hospital mortality in intensive care units.
Arterial catheters are used frequently in intensive care units (ICUs). Clinical effectiveness and adverse events associated with the use of the catheters have not been formally evaluated in clinical studies. ⋯ In this propensity-matched cohort analysis, arterial catheters were not associated with improvements in hospital mortality in medical ICU patients requiring mechanical ventilation. Given the costs and potential harms associated with invasive catheters, randomized clinical trials are needed to further evaluate the usefulness of these frequently used devices.