The typically accepted surgical procedure for cervical disc pathology has been the anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF), although recent trials have demonstrated equivalent or improved ...outcomes with cervical disc arthroplasty (CDA). Trends for these two procedures regarding utilization, revision procedures, and other demographic information have not been sufficiently explored.
The present study aims to provide data regarding ACDF and CDA from 2006 to 2013 in the United States.
The present study is a retrospective national database analysis.
The present study included 20% sample of discharges from US hospitals, which is weighted to provide national estimates.
Functional measures such as national incidence, hospital costs, length of stay (LOS), routine discharge, revision burden, and patient characteristics were used in the present study.
Patients from the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) database who underwent primary ACDF, revision ACDF, primary CDA, and revision CDA from 2006 to 2013 were included. Demographic and economic data for the procedures' respective International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification codes were collected.
A total of 1,059,403 ACDF and 13,099 CDA surgeries were performed in the United States from 2006 to 2013. The annual number of ACDF increased by 5.7% nonlinearly from 120,617 in 2006 to 127,500 in 2013 (mean per year 132,425; range 120,617–147,966); CDA increased by 190% nonlinearly from 540 in 2006 to 1,565 in 2013 (mean per year 1,637; range 540–2,381). Cervical disc arthroplasty patients were younger and had more private or “other” insurance, including worker's compensation (p<.0001). Mean LOS was longer for ACDF (ACDF 2.3 days vs. CDA 1.5; p<.0001). Routine discharge was higher in the CDA group (CDA 96% vs. ACDF 89%; p-value<.0001). The mean hospital-related cost was more expensive for ACDF (ACDF $16,178 vs. CDA $13,197; p-value=.0007). Cervical disc arthroplasty mean revision burden, defined as the ratio of revision procedures to the sum of primary and revision procedures, was greater (CDA 5.9% vs. ACDF 2.3%, p-value=.01).
Nationally approximately 132,000 ACDFs are done each year compared with only 1,600 CDAs. The number of ACDF surgeries performed far outpaces CDA by a ratio of 81:1 in the United States without a clear direction in the trend for utilization given recent fluctuations. Cervical disc arthroplasty revision burden was more than double compared with the ACDF revision burden (5.9% vs. 2.3%), which was not accounted for by patient baseline demographics. The etiologies of these findings are likely multifactorial and require further research.
Abstract
INTRODUCTION
There has been a steady increase in spinal fusion procedures performed each year in the US, especially cervical and lumbar fusion. Our study aims to analyze the rate of increase ...at low-, medium-, and high-volume hospitals, and socioeconomic characteristics of the patient populations at these three volume categories.
METHODS
We searched the New York State, Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System (SPARCS) database from 2005 to 2014 for the ICD-9-CM Procedure Codes 81.01 (Fusion, atlas-axis), 81.02 (Fusion, anterior column, other cervical, anterior technique), and 81.03 (Fusion, posterior column, other cervical, posterior technique). Patients' primary diagnosis (ICD-9-CM), age, race/ethnicity, primary payment method, severity of illness, length of stay, hospital of operation were included. We categorized all 122 hospitals high-, medium-, and low-volume. We then described the trends in annual number of cervical spine fusion surgeries in each of the three hospital volume groups using descriptive statistics.
RESULTS
>African American patients were significantly greater portion of patients receiving care at low-volume hospitals, 15.1% versus 11.6% at high-volume hospital. Medicaid and self-pay patients were also overrepresented at low-volume centers, 6.7% and 3.9% versus 2.6% and 1.7% respectively at high-volume centers. In addition, Compared with Caucasian patients, African American patients had higher rates of post-operative infection (P = 0.0020) and post-operative bleeding (P = 0.0044). Compared with privately insured patients, Medicaid patients had a higher rate of post-operative bleeding (P = 0.0266) and in-hospital mortality (P = 0.0031).
CONCLUSION
Our results showed significant differences in racial distribution and primary payments methods between the low- and high-volume categories, and suggests that accessibility to care at high-volume centers remains problematic for these disadvantaged populations.
The Indian government supports both public- and private-sector provision of hospital care for neonates: neonatal intensive care is offered in public facilities alongside a rising number of ...private-for-profit providers. However, there are few published reports about mortality levels and care practices in these facilities. We aimed to assess care practices, causes of admission, and outcomes from neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in public secondary and private tertiary hospitals and both public and private medical colleges enrolled in a quality improvement collaborative in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh-2 Indian states with a respective population of 35 and 50 million.
We conducted a cross-sectional study between 30 May and 26 August 2016 as part of a baseline evaluation in 52 consenting hospitals (26 public secondary hospitals, 5 public medical colleges, 15 private tertiary hospitals, and 6 private medical colleges) offering neonatal intensive care. We assessed the availability of staff and services, adherence to evidence-based practices at admission, and case fatality after admission to the NICU using a range of tools, including facility assessment, observations of admission, and abstraction of registers and telephone interviews after discharge. Our analysis is adjusted for clustering and weighted for caseload at the hospital level and presents findings stratified by type and ownership of hospitals. In total, the NICUs included just over 3,000 admissions per month. Staffing and infrastructure provision were largely according to government guidelines, except that only a mean of 1 but not the recommended 4 paediatricians were working in public secondary NICUs per 10 beds. On admission, all neonates admitted to private hospitals had auscultation (100%, 19 of 19 observations) but only 42% (95% confidence interval CI 25%-62%, p-value for difference is 0.361) in public secondary hospitals. The most common single cause of admission was preterm birth (25%) followed by jaundice (23%). Case-fatality rates at age 28 days after admission to a NICU were 4% (95% CI 2%-8%), 15% (9%-24%), 4% (2%-8%) and 2% (1%-5%) (Chi-squared p = 0.001) in public secondary hospitals, public medical colleges, private tertiary hospitals, and private medical colleges, respectively, according to facility registers. Case fatality according to postdischarge telephone interviews found rates of 12% (95% CI 7%-18%) for public secondary hospitals. Roughly 6% of admitted neonates were referred to another facility. Outcome data were missing for 27% and 8% of admissions to private tertiary hospitals and private medical colleges. Our study faced the limitation of missing data due to incomplete documentation. Further generalizability was limited due to the small sample size among private facilities.
Our findings suggest differences in quality of neonatal intensive care and 28-day survival between the different types of hospitals, although comparison of outcomes is complicated by differences in the case mix and referral practices between hospitals. Uniform reporting of outcomes and risk factors across the private and public sectors is required to assess the benefits for the population of mixed-care provision.
Abstract Objective The purpose of this study was to evaluate the trends in procedure volume, clinical sites of care, and Medicare expenditure for peripheral vascular interventions (PVIs) for lower ...extremity occlusive disease since the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services instituted reimbursement policy changes that broadened payment for procedures performed in physician-owned office-based laboratories (OBLs). Methods We analyzed fee-for-service Medicare claims data from 2011 to 2014 to obtain the frequency of use of PVI by type, care setting, and physician specialty. We also assessed changes in the total Medicare cost for PVI by setting. Results There was a 60% increase in atherectomy cases among Medicare beneficiaries between 2011 and 2014. During the same period, OBLs experienced a 298% increase in atherectomy volume vs a 27% increase in hospital outpatient settings and an 11% decrease for inpatient hospital settings. In 2014, OBLs were the most common setting for atherectomy. Nonatherectomy PVIs grew more modestly at just 3% but also experienced site of care shifts. Vascular surgeons and cardiologists accounted for the majority of office-based PVIs in 2014. Total Medicare costs for PVIs increased 18% from 2011 to 2014. Hospital inpatient costs declined 1%, whereas costs for hospital outpatient PVIs increased by 41% and physician office costs increased by 258%. Conclusions The migration of revascularization procedures for lower extremity peripheral arterial occlusive disease continues from the inpatient to the outpatient setting and especially to OBLs. Increased use of atherectomy in all segments of the lower extremity arterial system has been observed, particularly in OBLs, without substantial evidence in the literature of increased efficacy compared with standard angioplasty with or without stenting. Generous Medicare reimbursement for in-office atherectomy procedures is likely contributing to the volume shifts observed.
Trends in Medicaid physician fees, 2003-2008 Zuckerman, Stephen; Williams, Aimee F; Stockley, Karen E
Health affairs Web exclusive,
2009 May-Jun, Volume:
28, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Medicaid physician fees increased 15.1 percent, on average, between 2003 and 2008. This was below the general rate of inflation, resulting in a reduction in real fees. Only primary care fees grew at ...the rate of inflation-20 percent between 2003 and 2008. However, because of slow growth in Medicare fees, Medicaid fees closed a small portion of their ongoing gap relative to Medicare-growing from 69 percent to 72 percent of Medicare. The increase in Medicaid fees relative to Medicare fees resulted from relative increases for primary care and obstetrical services, but not for other services.
To examine patterns and recent trends in multiclass psychotropic treatment among youth visits to office-based physicians in the United States.
Annual data from the 1996-2007 National Ambulatory ...Medical Care Surveys were analyzed to examine patterns and trends in multiclass psychotropic treatment within a nationally representative sample of 3,466 child and adolescent visits to office-based physicians in which a psychotropic medication was prescribed.
There was an increase in the percentage of child visits in which psychotropic medications were prescribed that included at least two psychotropic classes. Across the 12 year period, multiclass psychotropic treatment rose from 14.3% of child psychotropic visits (1996-1999) to 20.2% (2004-2007) (adjusted odds ratio AOR = 1.89, 95% confidence interval CI = 1.22-2.94, p < .01). Among medical visits in which a current mental disorder was diagnosed, the percentage with multiclass psychotropic treatment increased from 22.2% (1996-1999) to 32.2% (2004-2007) (AOR = 2.23, 95% CI = 1.42-3.52, p < .001). Over time, there were significant increases in multiclass psychotropic visits in which ADHD medications, antidepressants, or antipsychotics were prescribed, and a decrease in those visits in which mood stabilizers were prescribed. There were also specific increases in co-prescription of ADHD medications and antipsychotic medications (AOR = 6.22, 95% CI = 2.82-13.70, p < .001) and co-prescription of antidepressant and antipsychotic medications (AOR = 5.77, 95% CI = 2.88-11.60, p < .001).
Although little is known about the safety and efficacy of regimens that involve concomitant use of two or more psychotropic agents for children and adolescents, multiclass psychotropic pharmacy is becoming increasingly common in outpatient practice.
Blockchain is a shared distributed digital ledger technology that can better facilitate data management, provenance and security, and has the potential to transform healthcare. Importantly, ...blockchain represents a data architecture, whose application goes far beyond Bitcoin - the cryptocurrency that relies on blockchain and has popularized the technology. In the health sector, blockchain is being aggressively explored by various stakeholders to optimize business processes, lower costs, improve patient outcomes, enhance compliance, and enable better use of healthcare-related data. However, critical in assessing whether blockchain can fulfill the hype of a technology characterized as 'revolutionary' and 'disruptive', is the need to ensure that blockchain design elements consider actual healthcare needs from the diverse perspectives of consumers, patients, providers, and regulators. In addition, answering the real needs of healthcare stakeholders, blockchain approaches must also be responsive to the unique challenges faced in healthcare compared to other sectors of the economy. In this sense, ensuring that a health blockchain is 'fit-for-purpose' is pivotal. This concept forms the basis for this article, where we share views from a multidisciplinary group of practitioners at the forefront of blockchain conceptualization, development, and deployment.
The aims of this study were to examine variation in the use of conscious sedation (CS) for transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) across hospitals and over time and to evaluate outcomes of CS ...compared with general anesthesia (GA) using instrumental variable analysis, a quasi-experimental method to control for unmeasured confounding.
Despite increasing use of CS for TAVR, contemporary data on utilization patterns are lacking, and existing studies evaluating the impact of sedation choice on outcomes may suffer from unmeasured confounding.
Among 120,080 patients in the TVT (Transcatheter Valve Therapy) Registry who underwent transfemoral TAVR between January 2016 and March 2019, the relationship between anesthesia choice and TAVR outcomes was evaluated using hospital proportional use of CS as an instrumental variable.
Over the study period, the proportion of TAVR performed using CS increased from 33% to 64%, and CS was used in a median of 0% and 91% of cases in the lowest and highest quartiles of hospital CS use, respectively. On the basis of instrumental variable analysis, CS was associated with decreases in in-hospital mortality (adjusted risk difference: 0.2%; p = 0.010) and 30-day mortality (adjusted risk difference: 0.5%; p < 0.001), shorter length of hospital stay (adjusted difference: 0.8 days; p < 0.001), and more frequent discharge to home (adjusted risk difference: 2.8%; p < 0.001) compared with GA. The magnitude of benefit for most endpoints was less than in a traditional propensity score-based approach, however.
In contemporary U.S. practice, the use of CS for TAVR continues to increase, although there remains wide variation across hospitals. The use of CS for TAVR is associated with improved outcomes (including reduced mortality) compared with GA, although the magnitude of benefit appears to be less than in previous studies.
Professional interpretation for patients with limited English proficiency remains underused. Understanding predictors of use is crucial for intervention. We sought to identify factors associated with ...professional interpreter use during pediatric emergency department (ED) visits.
We video recorded ED visits for a subset of participants (
= 50; 20% of the total sample) in a randomized trial of telephone versus video interpretation for Spanish-speaking limited English proficiency families. Medical communication events were coded for duration, health professional type, interpreter (none, ad hoc, or professional), and content. With communication event as the unit of analysis, associations between professional interpreter use and assigned interpreter modality, health professional type, and communication content were assessed with multivariate random-effects logistic regression, clustered on the patient.
We analyzed 312 communication events from 50 ED visits (28 telephone arm, 22 video arm). Professional interpretation was used for 36% of communications overall, most often for detailed histories (89%) and least often for procedures (11%) and medication administrations (8%). Speaker type, communication content, and duration were all significantly associated with professional interpreter use. Assignment to video interpretation was associated with significantly increased use of professional interpretation for communication with providers (adjusted odds ratio 2.7; 95% confidence interval: 1.1-7.0).
Professional interpreter use was inconsistent over the course of an ED visit, even for patients enrolled in an interpretation study. Assignment to video rather than telephone interpretation led to greater use of professional interpretation among physicians and nurse practitioners but not nurses and other staff.
Underutilisation of radiotherapy has been observed worldwide. To evaluate the current situation in Belgium, optimal utilisation proportions (OUPs) adopted from the European SocieTy for Radiotherapy ...and Oncology – Health Economics in Radiation Oncology (ESTRO-HERO) project were compared to actual utilisation proportions (AUPs) and with radiotherapy advised during the multidisciplinary cancer team (MDT) meetings. In addition, the impact of independent variables was analysed.
AUPs and advised radiotherapy were calculated overall and by cancer type for 110,810 unique cancer diagnoses in 2009–2010. Radiotherapy utilisation was derived from reimbursement data and distinguished between palliative and curative intent external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) and/or brachytherapy (BT). Sensitivity analyses regarding the influence of the follow-up period, the survival length and patient's age were performed. Advised radiotherapy was calculated based on broad treatment categories as reported at MDT meetings.
The overall AUP of 37% (39% including BT) was lower than the OUP of 53%, but in line with advised radiotherapy (35%). Large variations by tumour type were observed: in some tumours (e.g. lung and prostate cancer) AUP was considerably lower than OUP, whereas in others there was reasonable concordance (e.g. breast and rectal cancer). Overall, 84% of treatments started within 9 months following diagnosis. Survival time influenced AUP in a cancer type-dependent way. Elderly patients received less radiotherapy.
Although the actually delivered radiotherapy in Belgium aligns well to MDT advices, it is lower than the evidence-based optimum. Further analysis of potential barriers is needed for radiotherapy forecasting and planning, and in order to promote adequate access to radiotherapy.
•Based on evidence-based guidelines, half of all cancer patients need radiotherapy.•Cancer Registry and reimbursement data defined actual and advised radiotherapy.•Compared to the guidelines, radiotherapy is underutilised in Belgium.•Patient and tumour characteristics influence the gap between optimal and actual.•Actual practice aligns to advices given at multidisciplinary cancer team (MDT) meetings.
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