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    Postmarketing surveillance
    Safety Monitoring
    Drug reaction
    Citations (2)
    Aims/Background Electronic alerts can help with the early detection of acute kidney injury in hospitalised patients. Evidence for their role in improving patient care is limited. The authors have completed an audit loop to evaluate the impact of electronic alerts, and an associated acute kidney injury management pathway, on patient care. Methods The audits were conducted at a large tertiary care hospital in the UK. Case notes were reviewed for 99 patients over two periods: pre-alert (in 2013; n=55) and post-alert (in 2018; n=44), using the same methodology. Patients for case note reviews were randomly chosen from the list of acute kidney injury alerts generated by the local laboratory information management system. Results Recognition of acute kidney injury, as documented in the case notes, increased from 15% to 43% between the two periods. Time to first medical review (following electronic alerts) improved by 17 minutes (median 4 hours 4 minutes in 2013 vs 3 hours 47 minutes in 2018). Completion of pre-defined acute kidney injury assessment tasks (review of vital signs, biochemistry and acid–base parameters, evidence of fluid balance assessment, consideration of possible sepsis, and examination or requesting urinalysis) improved in 2018. However, acute kidney injury management tasks (correction of hypovolaemia, addressing or investigating obstruction, medications review, renal referral, requesting of further biochemical tests, addressing possible sepsis) showed very little or no improvement. Conclusions The introduction of acute kidney injury electronic alerts and management pathway resulted in improved recognition and initial assessment of patients with acute kidney injury. Further steps are needed to translate this in to improved patient management.
    Acute care
    Citations (2)
    Acute kidney injury (AKI) is associated with increased patient morbidity and mortality, and represents a significant financial burden for the NHS. The National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcomes and Death (NCEPOD)9s report, Adding insult to injury, demonstrated that only 50% of patients who died from AKI received good care and 30% of patients had predictable and avoidable AKI. It is therefore essential to identify patients at risk of AKI early and to treat patients who develop it promptly. This article proposes how this may be achieved by highlighting ten top tips that describe the points along the patient pathway where it is possible to intervene and prevent or treat AKI. The tips emphasise the importance of good basic medical care and the need for engagement with patients, healthcare professionals and hospital processes. The implementation of these tips in hospitals across the UK could potentially improve patient outcomes and reduce associated costs.
    The COVID-19 pandemic has required the adaptation of hyperacute stroke care (including stroke code pathways) and hospital stroke management. There remains a need to provide rapid and comprehensive assessment to acute stroke patients while reducing the risk of COVID-19 exposure, protecting healthcare providers, and preserving personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies. While the COVID infection is typically not a primary cerebrovascular condition, the downstream effects of this pandemic force adjustments to stroke care pathways to maintain optimal stroke patient outcomes.
    Stroke
    Pandemic
    Personal Protective Equipment
    Chronic kidney disease (CKD), a major public health problem, is especially challenging for patients and healthcare personnel in Africa, a region with poor economic resources and a massive shortage of health-care workers. The burden of kidney disease is increased in poorly-resourced regions due to increased exposure to infections, poverty, poor access to healthcare, and genetic predisposition to kidney disease, contributing further to the problems when managing CKD and acute kidney injury. The vast majority of patients do not have access to renal replacement therapy. Urgent attention to cost of dialysis is required for wider expansion of services so that renal replacement therapy is affordable for the governments and populations of Africa. Priority needs to be given to prevention and treatment of acute kidney injury. Lack of resources has hampered the widespread utilization of prevention strategies; these are optimally delivered in a primary healthcare setting by doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers with access to protocols for screening, disease management, achievement of treatment goals (with availability of therapy to retard progression), and criteria for referral to specialist and nephrology expertise. A regional or national renal registry is an important initiative to obtain accurate data on the burden of disease and outcomes of therapeutic interventions.
    Nephrology
    Renal replacement therapy
    Citations (9)
    Despite the availability of national practice guidelines, many patients fail to receive recommended chronic disease care. Physician time constraints in primary care are likely one cause.
    Citations (95)
    Abstract Patients with acute liver failure (ALF) are treated on the general intensive care unit (ICU) within this regional centre for hepatology and liver transplantation. This group of patients are at high risk of developing cerebral oedema, but because of the associated coagulopathy, intracranial pressure is not measured invasively. The safe management of these patients is vital to their outcome, and yet, there is no national or local guidance on the best practice for this group of patients. An absence of guidelines, or evidence base specific to caring for hepatology patients, was highlighted as we reviewed local clinical practices and those at other liver specialty centres, the British Liver Trust and published literature. We identified a need to develop evidence‐based guidance for staff caring for patients with ALF within ICUs. A systematic approach enabled us to identify best practice to support the development of a structured evidence‐based approach to care.
    Specialty
    Best practice
    Evidence-Based Practice
    Purpose of review Acute kidney injury (AKI) is common, harmful and of global concern. There is a need to understand the pathway of the management of AKI in order to identify potential areas where care can be improved, for the individual and for healthcare systems. Recent findings There has been considerable focus on risk assessment and earlier detection using changes in serum creatinine. There is less understanding of optimal management, enhanced and long-term recovery, and education to support better care. Using Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes-based criteria to improve the detection of AKI improves its detection, but requires supportive training and education to deliver better outcomes. Policy makers need to understand the personal and economic burden that results from AKI. There is a need to provide commissioning support, improvement methodologies, and registry initiatives with research investment to sustain progress in overall management. Summary There is clear evidence of harm related to AKI and a need to improve the reliability of care. The prevalence is high, with the potential to significantly improve short-term and long-term care by addressing all the elements in the pathway, at both patient and system level, assessing risk, detection, treatment, and recovery.
    Complex care management is seen as an approach to face the challenges of an ageing society with increasing numbers of patients with complex care needs. The Medical Research Council in the United Kingdom has proposed a framework for the development and evaluation of complex interventions that will be used to develop and evaluate a primary care-based complex care management program for chronically ill patients at high risk for future hospitalization in Germany. We present a multi-method procedure to develop a complex care management program to implement interventions aimed at reducing potentially avoidable hospitalizations for primary care patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or chronic heart failure and a high likelihood of hospitalization. The procedure will start with reflection about underlying precipitating factors of hospitalizations and how they may be targeted by the planned intervention (pre-clinical phase). An intervention model will then be developed (phase I) based on theory, literature, and exploratory studies (phase II). Exploratory studies are planned that entail the recruitment of 200 patients from 10 general practices. Eligible patients will be identified using two ways of 'case finding': software based predictive modelling and physicians' proposal of patients based on clinical experience. The resulting subpopulations will be compared regarding healthcare utilization, care needs and resources using insurance claims data, a patient survey, and chart review. Qualitative studies with healthcare professionals and patients will be undertaken to identify potential barriers and enablers for optimal performance of the complex care management program. This multi-method procedure will support the development of a primary care-based care management program enabling the implementation of interventions that will potentially reduce avoidable hospitalizations.
    Health administration
    Health Services Research
    Chronic care
    Disease management
    Citations (36)