The objective of this study was to evaluate the use of social media among healthcare workers in an attempt to identify how it affects the quality of patient care.
An anonymous survey of 35 questions ...was conducted in South Texas, on 366 healthcare workers. Of the 97% of people who reported owning electronic devices, 87.9% indicated that they used social media. These healthcare workers indicated that they spent approximately 1 h on social media every day. The healthcare workers below the age of 40 were more involved in social media compared to those above 40 (p < 0.05). The use of social media among physicians and nurses was noted to be identical (88% for each group), and both groups encouraged their patients to research their clinical conditions on social media (p < 0.05). A higher number of physicians reported awareness of a social media policy in their hospital compared to nurses (p < 0.05). However, a large proportion of healthcare workers (40%) were unaware of their workplace policy, which could potentially cause a privacy breach of confidential medical information. Further studies are required to evaluate specific effects of these findings on the quality of patient care.
More than 10,000 patients are hospitalized every year with Legionnaires' disease in the United States alone. Legionnaires' disease is also an important public health topic as it involves ...environmental and public issues, as far as its spread and prevention are concerned. With an aging population, increasing number of transplants, increasing use of immunosuppressive medications, and compromised immunity due to multiorgan system disease, Legionnaires' disease is emerging as an important disease.
Hepatic hemangioma: What internists need to know Leon, Monica; Chavez, Luis; Surani, Salim
World journal of gastroenterology,
2020-Jan-07, 2020-1-7, 20200107, Letnik:
26, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Odprti dostop
Hepatic hemangioma (HH) is the most common benign liver tumor and it is usually found incidentally during radiological studies. This tumor arises from a vascular malformation; however, the ...pathophysiology has not been clearly elucidated. Symptoms usually correlate with the size and location of the tumor. Less commonly the presence of a large HH may cause life-threatening conditions. The diagnosis can be established by the identification of HH hallmarks in several imaging studies. In patients that present with abdominal symptoms other etiologies should be excluded first before attributing HH as the cause. In asymptomatic patient's treatment is not required and follow up is usually reserved for HH of more than 5 cm. Symptomatic patients can be managed surgically or with other non-surgical modalities such as transcatheter arterial embolization or radiofrequency ablation. Enucleation surgery has shown to have fewer complications as compared to hepatectomy or other surgical techniques. Progression of the tumor is seen in less than 40%. Hormone stimulation may play a role in HH growth; however, there are no contraindications for hormonal therapy in patients with HH due to the lack of concrete evidence. When clinicians encounter this condition, they should discern between observation and surgical or non-surgical management based on the clinical presentation.
Summary Vibrio vulnificus is a halophilic Gram-negative bacillus found worldwide in warm coastal waters. The pathogen has the ability to cause primary sepsis in certain high-risk populations, ...including patients with chronic liver disease, immunodeficiency, iron storage disorders, end-stage renal disease, and diabetes mellitus. Most reported cases of primary sepsis in the USA are associated with the ingestion of raw or undercooked oysters harvested from the Gulf Coast. The mortality rate for patients with severe sepsis is high, exceeding 50% in most reported series. Other clinical presentations include wound infection and gastroenteritis. Mild to moderate wound infection and gastroenteritis may occur in patients without obvious risk factors. Severe wound infection is often characterized by necrotizing skin and soft-tissue infection, including fasciitis and gangrene. V. vulnificus possesses several virulence factors, including the ability to evade destruction by stomach acid, capsular polysaccharide, lipopolysaccharide, cytotoxins, pili, and flagellum. The preferred antimicrobial therapy is doxycycline in combination with ceftazidime and surgery for necrotizing soft-tissue infection.
The SARS-CoV-2, a novel virus has shown an association with central nervous system (CNS) symptoms. Initial retrospective studies emerging from China and France, as well as case reports from different ...parts of the world revealed a spectrum of neurological symptoms ranging from a simple headache to more serious encephalitis and dysexecutive syndromes. Authors have tried to explain this neurotropism of the virus by comparing invasion mechanisms with prior epidemic coronavirus like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). Concrete evidence on those viruses has been limited. This review attempts to discuss various pathophysiological mechanisms as it relates to neurological complications of SARS-CoV-2. We will also discuss the neurological manifestations seen in various retrospective studies, systemic reviews, and case reports.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a well-known sleep ailment. OSA mostly occurs due to the shortage of oxygen for the human body, which causes several symptoms (i.e., low concentration, daytime ...sleepiness, and irritability). Discovering the existence of OSA at an early stage can save lives and reduce the cost of treatment. The computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system can quickly detect OSA by examining the electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. Over-serving ECG using a visual procedure is challenging for physicians, time-consuming, expensive, and subjective. In general, automated detection of the ECG signal’s arrhythmia is a complex task due to the complexity of the data quantity and clinical content. Moreover, ECG signals are usually affected by noise (i.e., patient movement and disturbances generated by electric devices or infrastructure), which reduces the quality of the collected data. Machine learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) gain a higher interest in health care systems due to its ability of achieving an excellent performance compared to traditional classifiers. We propose a CAD system to diagnose apnea events based on ECG in an automated way in this work. The proposed system follows the following steps: (1) remove noise from the ECG signal using a Notch filter. (2) extract nine features from the ECG signal (3) use thirteen ML and four types of DL models for the diagnosis of sleep apnea. The experimental results show that our proposed approach offers a good performance of DL classifiers to detect OSA. The proposed model achieves an accuracy of 86.25% in the validation stage.
Almost one billion people worldwide are affected by Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA). Affected individuals experience disordered breathing patterns during sleep, which results in fatigue, daytime ...drowsiness, and/or sleep deprivation. Working under the influence of these symptoms significantly impairs work productivity and leads to occupational accidents and errors. This impact is seen in healthcare workers (HCWs) who are not immune to these conditions. However, poorly controlled OSA in this subset of individuals takes a heavy toll on patient care due to the increased risk of medical errors and can also alter the mental and physical well-being of the affected HCW in various ways. OSA and safety issues have been recognized and mitigated among the airline and transport industries; however, the healthcare industry lags in addressing these concerns. This article reviews hypersomnolence and sleep disorder as key clinical features of OSA and their effect on HCW safety.
Well-trained machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) systems can provide clinicians with therapeutic assistance, potentially increasing efficiency and improving efficacy. ML has ...demonstrated high accuracy in oncology-related diagnostic imaging, including screening mammography interpretation, colon polyp detection, glioma classification, and grading. By utilizing ML techniques, the manual steps of detecting and segmenting lesions are greatly reduced. ML-based tumor imaging analysis is independent of the experience level of evaluating physicians, and the results are expected to be more standardized and accurate. One of the biggest challenges is its generalizability worldwide. The current detection and screening methods for colon polyps and breast cancer have a vast amount of data, so they are ideal areas for studying the global standardization of artificial intelligence. Central nervous system cancers are rare and have poor prognoses based on current management standards. ML offers the prospect of unraveling undiscovered features from routinely acquired neuroimaging for improving treatment planning, prognostication, monitoring, and response assessment of CNS tumors such as gliomas. By studying AI in such rare cancer types, standard management methods may be improved by augmenting personalized/precision medicine. This review aims to provide clinicians and medical researchers with a basic understanding of how ML works and its role in oncology, especially in breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and primary and metastatic brain cancer. Understanding AI basics, current achievements, and future challenges are crucial in advancing the use of AI in oncology.
Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a disease, which targets the pulmonary vasculature affecting the heart and the lungs, and is characterized by a vast array of signs and symptoms. These manifestations ...of PH in pregnancy are highly variable and non-specific hence, it is prudent to have a very keen and high index of suspicion while evaluating these patients. This rare disease can be extremely debilitating and can be associated with a poor overall prognosis. Pregnancy in women with PH puts them at an elevated risk because the physiological changes associated with pregnancy are not well endured leading to even higher morbidity and mortality in these patients. Although there are various modalities for evaluation and workup of PH, right heart catheterization (RHC) remains the gold standard. A mean pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) of more than 20 mm of Hg is considered diagnostic. It is indeed heartening to see that in the past decade many novel therapeutic modalities have emerged and along with a better understanding of the disease process have proved to be promising in terms of reducing the adverse outcomes and preventing death in this population of patients.
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