Articles: pandemics.
-
Observational Study
Patterns in the Pandemic: Disproportionate Patient Burdens Among Regional Hospitals.
To examine the distribution of hospitalized COVID-19 patients among adult acute care facilities in the Greater Philadelphia area and identify factors associated with hospitals carrying higher burdens of COVID-19 patients. ⋯ Substantial discrepancies in COVID-19 inpatient burdens existed among Philadelphia-region adult acute care facilities during the initial COVID-19 surge. Trauma center status, urban location, low household income, and high reliance on public insurance were associated with both higher COVID-19 burdens and longer periods of high occupancy. Improved data collection and centralized sharing of pandemic-specific data between health care facilities may improve resource balancing and patient care during current and future response efforts.
-
Little is known about the potential changes in the dispensation of life-saving hepatitis C virus (HCV) and HIV antivirals after the initial U.S. outbreak of COVID-19. The objective of this study was to describe the immediate and 1-year impacts of the U.S. outbreak of COVID-19 on monthly dispensing of HIV and HCV antivirals, specifically direct-acting antivirals (DAA) to treat HCV, antiretroviral therapy (ART) to treat HIV, and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV. ⋯ U.S. dispensing of DAAs to treat HCV fell at the start of the U.S. COVID-19 outbreak and has yet to fully recover to prepandemic levels. Addressing barriers to care is crucial to reaching national HIV and hepatitis C elimination goals.
-
The COVID-19 pandemic‒related BMI gain and obesity prevalence changes in children have not been clearly elucidated, especially in China. This study aims to assess the impact of pandemic-related BMI and obesity prevalence change in Chinese children aged 8-12 years. ⋯ BMI gain increased among Chinese children aged 8-12 years during the pandemic. There is an urgent need to formulate effective public health policies to reduce the risk of pandemic-related childhood obesity.
-
One in 4 deaths from COVID-19 has been attributed to hospital crowding. We simulated how many ambulances would be required to rebalance hospital load through systematic interhospital transfers. We assessed the potential feasibility of such a strategy and explored whether transfer requirement was a helpful measure and visualization of regional hospital crowding during COVID-19 surges. ⋯ This simulation demonstrated that for most weeks during the pandemic, ambulance availability and bed capacity were unlikely to have been the main impediments to rebalancing hospital loads. Our metric provided an immediately available and much more complete measure of hospital system strain than counts of hospital admissions alone.
-
Pediatric emergency care · Oct 2022
Diagnostic Yield of Cardiac Biomarker Testing in Predicting Cardiac Disease and Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children in the Pandemic Era.
This study aimed to assess whether elevations in cardiac biomarkers are associated with pediatric cardiac diagnoses in the era of COVID-19 and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C). ⋯ Children with elevated cardiac biomarkers have increased odds of a cardiac diagnosis or MIS-C and warrant workup regardless of indication for testing. Although a negative hsTropT may reassure providers, further investigation is critical in developing algorithms to reliably exclude cardiac disease.