Up to one-third of women with ovarian cancer in the United States do not receive surgical care from a gynecologic oncologist specialist despite guideline recommendations. We aim to investigate the ...impact of rurality on receiving surgical care from a specialist, referral to a specialist, and specialist surgery after referral, and the consequences of specialist care.
We utilized a retrospective cohort created through an extension of standard cancer surveillance in three Midwestern states. Multivariable adjusted logistic regression was utilized to assess gynecologic oncologist treatment of women 18–89 years old, who were diagnosed with primary, histologically confirmed, malignant ovarian cancer in 2010–2012 in Kansas, Missouri and Iowa by rurality.
Rural women were significantly less likely to receive surgical care from a gynecologic oncologist specialist (adjusted odds ratio (OR) 0.37, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.24–0.58) and referral to a specialist (OR 0.37, 95% CI 0.23–0.59) compared to urban women. There was no significant difference in specialist surgery after a referral (OR 0.56, 95% CI 0.26–1.20). Rural women treated surgically by a gynecologic oncologist versus non-specialist were more likely to receive cytoreduction and more complete tumor removal to ≤1 cm.
There is a large rural-urban difference in receipt of ovarian cancer surgery from a gynecologic oncologist specialist (versus a non-specialist). Disparities in referral rates contribute to the rural-urban difference. Further research will help define the causes of referral disparities, as well as promising strategies to address them.
•Rural ovarian cancer patients are 63% less likely to receive a referral to a gynecologic oncologist for surgery•Rural ovarian cancer patients are significantly less likely to receive surgery from a gynecologic oncologist•After a surgical referral, rural ovarian cancer patients are just as likely to receive surgery from a specialist•Specialist-provided surgery increases receipt of cytoreduction and complete tumor removal for rural ovarian cancer patients•Rural women (versus urban) who receive surgery from a gynecologic oncologist travel farther to surgical care
Background Hysterectomy is among the most common major surgical procedures performed in women. Approximately 450,000 hysterectomy procedures are performed each year in the United States for benign ...indications. However, little is known regarding contemporary US hysterectomy trends for women with benign disease with respect to operative technique and perioperative complications, and the association between these 2 factors with patient, surgeon, and hospital characteristics. Objective We sought to describe contemporary hysterectomy trends and explore associations between patient, surgeon, and hospital characteristics with surgical approach and perioperative complications. Study Design Hysterectomies performed for benign indications by general gynecologists from July 2012 through September 2014 were analyzed in the all-payer Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission database. We excluded hysterectomies performed by gynecologic oncologists, reproductive endocrinologists, and female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgeons. We included both open hysterectomies and those performed by minimally invasive surgery, which included vaginal hysterectomies. Perioperative complications were defined using the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality patient safety indicators. Surgeon hysterectomy volume during the 2-year study period was analyzed (0-5 cases annually = very low, 6-10 = low, 11-20 = medium, and ≥21 = high). We utilized logistic regression and negative binomial regression to identify patient, surgeon, and hospital characteristics associated with minimally invasive surgery utilization and perioperative complications, respectively. Results A total of 5660 hospitalizations were identified during the study period. Most patients (61.5%) had an open hysterectomy; 38.5% underwent a minimally invasive surgery procedure (25.1% robotic, 46.6% laparoscopic, 28.3% vaginal). Most surgeons (68.2%) were very low– or low-volume surgeons. Factors associated with a lower likelihood of undergoing minimally invasive surgery included older patient age (reference 45-64 years; 20-44 years: adjusted odds ratio, 1.16; 95% confidence interval, 1.05 – 1.28), black race (reference white; adjusted odds ratio, 0.70; 95% confidence interval, 0.63 – 0.78), Hispanic ethnicity (adjusted odds ratio, 0.62; 95% confidence interval, 0.48 – 0.80), smaller hospital (reference large; small: adjusted odds ratio, 0.26; 95% confidence interval, 0.15 – 0.45; medium: adjusted odds ratio, 0.87; 95% confidence interval, 0.79 – 0.96), medium hospital hysterectomy volume (reference ≥200 hysterectomies; 100-200: adjusted odds ratio, 0.78; 95% confidence interval, 0.71 – 0.87), and medium vs high surgeon volume (reference high; medium: adjusted odds ratio, 0.87; 95% confidence interval, 0.78 – 0.97). Complications occurred in 25.8% of open and 8.2% of minimally invasive hysterectomies ( P < .0001). Minimally invasive hysterectomy (adjusted odds ratio, 0.22; 95% confidence interval, 0.17 – 0.27) and large hysterectomy volume hospitals (reference ≥200 hysterectomies; 1-100: adjusted odds ratio, 2.26; 95% confidence interval, 1.60 – 3.20; 101-200: adjusted odds ratio, 1.63; 95% confidence interval, 1.23 – 2.16) were associated with fewer complications, while patient payer, including Medicare (reference private; adjusted odds ratio, 1.86; 95% confidence interval, 1.33 – 2.61), Medicaid (adjusted odds ratio, 1.63; 95% confidence interval, 1.30 – 2.04), and self-pay status (adjusted odds ratio, 2.41; 95% confidence interval, 1.40 – 4.12), and very-low and low surgeon hysterectomy volume (reference ≥21 cases; 1-5 cases: adjusted odds ratio, 1.73; 95% confidence interval, 1.22 – 2.47; 6-10 cases: adjusted odds ratio, 1.60; 95% confidence interval, 1.11 – 2.23) were associated with perioperative complications. Conclusion Use of minimally invasive hysterectomy for benign indications remains variable, with most patients undergoing open, more morbid procedures. Older and black patients and smaller hospitals are associated with open hysterectomy. Patient race and payer status, hysterectomy approach, and surgeon volume were associated with perioperative complications. Hysterectomies performed for benign indications by high-volume surgeons or by minimally invasive techniques may represent an opportunity to reduce preventable harm.
Rural health disparities and access gaps may contribute to higher maternal and infant morbidity and mortality. Understanding and addressing access barriers for specialty women's health services is ...important in mitigating risks for adverse childbirth events. The objective of this study was to investigate rural-urban differences in health care access for women of reproductive age by examining differences in past-year provider visit rates by provider type, and quantifying the contributing factors to these findings.
Using a nationally-representative sample of reproductive age women (n = 37,026) from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (2010-2015) linked to the Area Health Resource File, rural-urban differences in past-year office visit rates with health care providers were examined. Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition analysis quantified the portion of disparities explained by individual- and county-level sociodemographic and provider supply characteristics. Overall, there were no rural-urban differences in past-year visits with women's health providers collectively (65.0% vs 62.4%), however differences were observed by provider type. Rural women had lower past-year obstetrician-gynecologist (OB-GYN) visit rates than urban women (23.3% vs. 26.6%), and higher visit rates with family medicine physicians (24.3% vs. 20.9%) and nurse practitioners/physician assistants (NPs/PAs) (24.6% vs. 16.1%). Lower OB-GYN availability in rural versus urban counties (6.1 vs. 13.7 providers/100,000 population) explained most of the rural disadvantage in OB-GYN visit rates (83.8%), and much of the higher family physician (80.9%) and NP/PA (50.1%) visit rates. Other individual- and county-level characteristics had smaller effects on rural-urban differences.
Although there were no overall rural-urban differences in past-year visit rates, the lower OB-GYN availability in rural areas appears to affect the types of health care providers seen by women. Whether rural women are receiving adequate specialized women's health care services, while seeing a different cadre of providers, warrants further investigation and has particular relevance for women experiencing high-risk pregnancies and deliveries.
The End-Stage Renal Disease Treatment Choices (ETC) model randomly selected 30% of US dialysis facilities to receive financial incentives based on their use of home dialysis, kidney transplant ...waitlisting, or transplant receipt. Facilities that disproportionately serve populations with high social risk have a lower use of home dialysis and kidney transplant raising concerns that these sites may fare poorly in the payment model.
To examine first-year ETC model performance scores and financial penalties across dialysis facilities, stratified by their incident patients' social risk.
A cross-sectional study of 2191 US dialysis facilities that participated in the ETC model from January 1 through December 31, 2021.
Composition of incident patient population, characterized by the proportion of patients who were non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic, living in a highly disadvantaged neighborhood, uninsured, or covered by Medicaid at dialysis initiation. A facility-level composite social risk score assessed whether each facility was in the highest quintile of having 0, 1, or at least 2 of these characteristics.
Use of home dialysis, waitlisting, or transplant; model performance score; and financial penalization.
Using data from 125 984 incident patients (median age, 65 years IQR, 54-74; 41.8% female; 28.6% Black; 11.7% Hispanic), 1071 dialysis facilities (48.9%) had no social risk features, and 491 (22.4%) had 2 or more. In the first year of the ETC model, compared with those with no social risk features, dialysis facilities with 2 or more had lower mean performance scores (3.4 vs 3.6, P = .002) and lower use of home dialysis (14.1% vs 16.0%, P < .001). These facilities had higher receipt of financial penalties (18.5% vs 11.5%, P < .001), more frequently had the highest payment cut of 5% (2.4% vs 0.7%; P = .003), and were less likely to achieve the highest bonus of 4% (0% vs 2.7%; P < .001). Compared with all other facilities, those in the highest quintile of treating uninsured patients or those covered by Medicaid experienced more financial penalties (17.4% vs 12.9%, P = .01) as did those in the highest quintile in the proportion of patients who were Black (18.5% vs 12.6%, P = .001).
In the first year of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' ETC model, dialysis facilities serving higher proportions of patients with social risk features had lower performance scores and experienced markedly higher receipt of financial penalties.
The need to align investments in health research and development (R&D) with public health demands is one of the most pressing global public health challenges. We aim to provide a comprehensive ...description of available data sources, propose a set of indicators for monitoring the global landscape of health R&D, and present a sample of country indicators on research inputs (investments), processes (clinical trials), and outputs (publications), based on data from international databases. Total global investments in health R&D (both public and private sector) in 2009 reached US$240 billion. Of the US$214 billion invested in high-income countries, 60% of health R&D investments came from the business sector, 30% from the public sector, and about 10% from other sources (including private non-profit organisations). Only about 1% of all health R&D investments were allocated to neglected diseases in 2010. Diseases of relevance to high-income countries were investigated in clinical trials seven-to-eight-times more often than were diseases whose burden lies mainly in low-income and middle-income countries. This report confirms that substantial gaps in the global landscape of health R&D remain, especially for and in low-income and middle-income countries. Too few investments are targeted towards the health needs of these countries. Better data are needed to improve priority setting and coordination for health R&D, ultimately to ensure that resources are allocated to diseases and regions where they are needed the most. The establishment of a global observatory on health R&D, which is being discussed at WHO, could address the absence of a comprehensive and sustainable mechanism for regular global monitoring of health R&D.
Differences in the incidence of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) provided by bystanders contribute to survival disparities among persons with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. It is critical to ...understand whether the incidence of bystander CPR in witnessed out-of-hospital cardiac arrests at home and in public settings differs according to the race or ethnic group of the person with cardiac arrest in order to inform interventions.
Within a large U.S. registry, we identified 110,054 witnessed out-of-hospital cardiac arrests during the period from 2013 through 2019. We used a hierarchical logistic regression model to analyze the incidence of bystander CPR in Black or Hispanic persons as compared with White persons with witnessed cardiac arrests at home and in public locations. We analyzed the overall incidence as well as the incidence according to neighborhood racial or ethnic makeup and income strata. Neighborhoods were classified as predominantly White (>80% of residents), majority Black or Hispanic (>50% of residents), or integrated, and as high income (an annual median household income of >$80,000), middle income ($40,000-$80,000), or low income (<$40,000).
Overall, 35,469 of the witnessed out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (32.2%) occurred in Black or Hispanic persons. Black and Hispanic persons were less likely to receive bystander CPR at home (38.5%) than White persons (47.4%) (adjusted odds ratio, 0.74; 95% confidence interval CI, 0.72 to 0.76) and less likely to receive bystander CPR in public locations than White persons (45.6% vs. 60.0%) (adjusted odds ratio, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.60 to 0.66). The incidence of bystander CPR among Black and Hispanic persons was less than that among White persons not only in predominantly White neighborhoods at home (adjusted odds ratio, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.74 to 0.90) and in public locations (adjusted odds ratio, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.60 to 0.75) but also in majority Black or Hispanic neighborhoods at home (adjusted odds ratio, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.75 to 0.83) and in public locations (adjusted odds ratio, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.59 to 0.68) and in integrated neighborhoods at home (adjusted odds ratio, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.74 to 0.81) and in public locations (adjusted odds ratio, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.68 to 0.77). Similarly, across all neighborhood income strata, the frequency of bystander CPR at home and in public locations was lower among Black and Hispanic persons with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest than among White persons.
In witnessed out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, Black and Hispanic persons were less likely than White persons to receive potentially lifesaving bystander CPR at home and in public locations, regardless of the racial or ethnic makeup or income level of the neighborhood where the cardiac arrest occurred. (Funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.).
The purpose of the study is to analyze how the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic affected acute stroke care in a Comprehensive Stroke Center.
On February 28, 2020, contingency plans were ...implemented at Hospital Clinic of Barcelona to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Among them, the decision to refrain from reallocating the Stroke Team and Stroke Unit to the care of patients with COVID-19. From March 1 to March 31, 2020, we measured the number of emergency calls to the Emergency Medical System in Catalonia (7.5 million inhabitants), and the Stroke Codes dispatched to Hospital Clinic of Barcelona. We recorded all stroke admissions, and the adequacy of acute care measures, including the number of thrombectomies, workflow metrics, angiographic results, and clinical outcomes. Data were compared with March 2019 using parametric or nonparametric methods as appropriate.
At Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, 1232 patients with COVID-19 were admitted in March 2020, demanding 60% of the hospital bed capacity. Relative to March 2019, the Emergency Medical System had a 330% mean increment in the number of calls (158 005 versus 679 569), but fewer Stroke Code activations (517 versus 426). Stroke admissions (108 versus 83) and the number of thrombectomies (21 versus 16) declined at Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, particularly after lockdown of the population. Younger age was found in stroke admissions during the pandemic (median interquartile range 69 64-73 versus 75 73-80 years,
=0.009). In-hospital, there were no differences in workflow metrics, angiographic results, complications, or outcomes at discharge.
The COVID-19 pandemic reduced by a quarter the stroke admissions and thrombectomies performed at a Comprehensive Stroke Center but did not affect the quality of care metrics. During the lockdown, there was an overload of emergency calls but fewer Stroke Code activations, particularly in elderly patients. Hospital contingency plans, patient transport systems, and population-targeted alerts must act concertedly to better protect the chain of stroke care in times of pandemic.
The health system of Mexico Gómez Dantés, Octavio; Sesma, Sergio; Becerril, Victor M ...
Salud pública de México,
2011, Letnik:
53 Suppl 2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This paper describes the Mexican health system. In part one, the health conditions of the Mexican population are discussed, with emphasis in those emerging diseases that are now the main causes of ...death, both in men and women: diabetes, ischaemic heart disease, cerebrovascular diseases and cancer. Part two is devoted to the description of the basic structure of the system: its main institutions, the population coverage, the health benefits of those affiliated to the different heath institutions, its financial sources, the levels of financial protection in health, the availability of physical, material and human resources for health, and the stewardship functions displayed by the Ministry of Health and other actors. This part also discusses the role of citizens in the monitorization and evaluation of the health system, as well as the levels of satisfaction with the rendered health services. In part three the most recent innovations and its impact on the performance of the health system are discussed. Salient among them are the System of Social Protection in Health and the Popular Health Insurance. The paper concludes with a brief analysis of the short- and middle-term challenges faced by the Mexican health system.
Evaluate racial/ethnic variation in hysterectomy surgical route in women likely eligible for minimally invasive hysterectomy.
Cross-sectional study.
Multistate including Colorado, Florida, Maryland, ...New Jersey, and New York.
Women aged ≥18 years without diagnoses of leiomyomas, obesity, or previous abdominopelvic surgery who underwent hysterectomy for benign conditions from the State Inpatient and Ambulatory Surgery Databases, 2010-2014.
None. Primary exposure is race/ethnicity.
Racial/ethnic variation in annual hysterectomy rates and surgical route. To calculate hysterectomy rates per 100 000 women/year, denominators were adjusted for the proportion of women with previous hysterectomy. A marginal structural log binomial regression model was used to estimate adjusted standardized prevalence ratios (aPRs) for vaginal or laparoscopic vs abdominal hysterectomy, controlling for clustering within hospitals. In addition, hospitals were stratified into quintiles to examine surgical route in hospitals that serve a higher vs lower proportion of African American patients. A total of 133 082 adult women underwent hysterectomy for benign conditions from 2010 to 2014. Annual laparoscopic rates increased more slowly for African Americans (1.6-fold) than for whites (1.8-fold) and Hispanics (1.9-fold). African American and Hispanic women were less likely to undergo vaginal (aPR = 0.93; 95% confidence interval CI, 0.90-0.96 and aPR = 0.95; 95% CI 0.93-0.97, respectively) and laparoscopic hysterectomy (aPR = 0.90; 95% CI, 0.87-0.94 and aPR = 0.95; 95% CI, 0.92-0.98, respectively) than white women; Asian/Pacific Islander women were less likely to undergo vaginal hysterectomy (aPR = 0.88; 95% CI, 0.81-0.96). Hospitals serving a higher proportion of African American persons performed more abdominal and fewer vaginal procedures across all groups, and more racial/ethnic minority women sought care at those hospitals than white women.
African American, Hispanic, and Asian/Pacific Islander women eligible for minimally invasive hysterectomy were more likely than white women to receive abdominal hysterectomy. The proportion of all women undergoing abdominal hysterectomy was highest at hospitals serving higher proportions of African American persons. This difference in treatment type can lead to disparities in outcomes, in part owing to their association with complications.
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