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The use of standardised tools is an essential component of evidence-based practice. Reliance on standardised tools places demands on clinicians to understand their properties, strengths, and weaknesses, in order to interpret results and make clinical decisions. This paper makes a case for clinicians to consider measurement error (ME) indices Coefficient of Repeatability (CR) or the Smallest Real Difference (SRD) over relative reliability coefficients like the Pearson's (r) and the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC), while selecting tools to measure change and inferring change as true. The authors present statistical methods that are part of the current approach to evaluate test-retest reliability of assessment tools and outcome measurements. Selected examples from a previous test-retest study are used to elucidate the added advantages of knowledge of the ME of an assessment tool in clinical decision making. The CR is computed in the same units as the assessment tool and sets the boundary of the minimal detectable true change that can be measured by the tool.

Background Artificial Intelligence (AI) is recognized by emergency physicians (EPs) as an important technology that will affect clinical practice. Several AI-tools have already been developed to aid care delivery in emergency medicine (EM). However, many EM tools appear to have been developed without a cross-disciplinary needs assessment, making it difficult to understand their broader importance to general-practice. Clinician surveys about AI tools have been conducted within other medical specialties to help guide future design. This study aims to understand the needs of Canadian EPs for the apt use of AI-based tools. Methods A national cross-sectional, two-stage, mixed-method electronic survey of Canadian EPs was conducted from January-May 2022. The survey includes demographic and physician practice-pattern data, clinicians’ current use and perceptions of AI, and individual rankings of which EM work-activities most benefit from AI. Results The primary outcome is a ranked list of high-priority AI-tools for EM that physicians want translated into general use within the next 10 years. When ranking specific AI examples, ‘automated charting/report generation’, ‘clinical prediction rules’ and ‘monitoring vitals with early-warning detection’ were the top items. When ranking by physician work-activities, ‘AI-tools for documentation’, ‘AI-tools for computer use’ and ‘AI-tools for triaging patients’ were the top items. For secondary outcomes, EPs indicated AI was ‘likely’ (43.1%) or ‘extremely likely’ (43.7%) to be able to complete the task of ‘documentation’ and indicated either ‘a-great-deal’ (32.8%) or ‘quite-a-bit’ (39.7%) of potential for AI in EM. Further, EPs were either ‘strongly’ (48.5%) or ‘somewhat’ (39.8%) interested in AI for EM. Conclusions Physician input on the design of AI is essential to ensure the uptake of this technology. Translation of AI-tools to facilitate documentation is considered a high-priority, and respondents had high confidence that AI could facilitate this task. This study will guide future directions regarding the use of AI for EM and help direct efforts to address prevailing technology-translation barriers such as access to high-quality application-specific data and developing reporting guidelines for specific AI-applications. With a prioritized list of high-need AI applications, decision-makers can develop focused strategies to address these larger obstacles.

Background Cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) is associated with systemic inflammation, featuring increased levels of circulating pro-inflammatory cytokines. Intra-operative ultrafiltration extracts fluid and inflammatory factors potentially dampening inflammation-related organ dysfunction and enhancing post-operative recovery. This study aimed to define the impact of continuous subzero-balance ultrafiltration (SBUF) on circulating levels of major inflammatory mediators. Methods Twenty pediatric patients undergoing cardiac surgery, CPB and SBUF were prospectively enrolled. Blood samples were collected prior to CPB initiation (Pre-CPB Plasma) and immediately before weaning off CPB (End-CPB Plasma). Ultrafiltrate effluent samples were also collected at the End-CPB time-point (End-CPB Effluent). The concentrations of thirty-nine inflammatory factors were assessed and sieving coefficients were calculated. Results A profound increase in inflammatory cytokines and activated complement products were noted in plasma following CBP. Twenty-two inflammatory mediators were detected in the ultrafiltrate effluent. Novel mediators removed by ultrafiltration included cytokines IL1-Ra, IL-2, IL-12, IL-17A, IL-33, TRAIL, GM-CSF, ET-1, and the chemokines CCL2, CCL3, CCL4, CXCL1, CXCL2 and CXCL10. Mediator extraction by SBUF was significantly associated with molecular mass < 66 kDa (Chi 2 statistic = 18.8, Chi 2 with Yates’ correction = 16.0, p < 0.0001). There was a moderate negative linear correlation between molecular mass and sieving coefficient (Spearman R = − 0.45 and p = 0.02). Notably, the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 was not efficiently extracted by SBUF. Conclusions CPB is associated with a burden of circulating inflammatory mediators, and SBUF selectively extracts twenty of these pro-inflammatory factors while preserving the key anti-inflammatory regulator IL-10. Ultrafiltration could potentially function as an immunomodulatory therapy during pediatric cardiac surgery. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT05154864. Registered retrospectively on December 13, 2021. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/record/NCT05154864 .

Sternotomy provides access to the mediastinum, heart and great vessels for congenital cardiac surgery in children. The contribution of this incision to the systemic inflammatory response during open-heart surgery, particularly in combination with the complement-mediated response to cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB), is unknown. This study aimed to characterize the inflammatory mediator profile of sternotomy and contrast that with CPB-associated inflammation. This study is a analysis of a single-arm prospective clinical study (NCT05154864) of 40 pediatric patients undergoing congenital cardiac surgery with CPB. Arterial blood samples were taken before and after sternotomy, but before CPB initiation (sternotomy phase), and after CPB exposure (CPB phase). Thirty-three inflammatory mediators from the cytokine, chemokine, complement, and adhesion molecule families were measured. The mediator changes were calculated for each phase and described using median fold changes. A principal component analysis with hierarchical clustering (PCA-HCPC) was conducted on mediator changes over the sternotomy phase. Compared to baseline, all 16 cytokines and chemokines assessed increased through the sternotomy phase, while complement and adhesion molecules were static or decreased. The most active mediators were IL-1β (3.3x median fold increase), CXCL2 (3.3x), IL-6 (2.6x), IL-10 (2.6x), GM-CSF (2.3x), IL-1α (2.2x) and IL-2 (1.7x). The PCA-HCPC showed three statistically significant clusters, cluster 1 grouped cytokines and chemokines with the sternotomy phase, while complement mediators and adhesion molecules were in separate clusters. In contrast to the CPB exposure, sternotomy showed a predominant contribution of TNF, IL-1α, IL-1β, IL-2, TRAIL, CCL3, CCL4, CXCL1, CXCL2 and GM-CSF to the systemic inflammatory response. Sternotomy and related tissue trauma produce a distinct systemic inflammatory mediator profile, consisting of pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines but not complement. The mediators IL-6, CXCL8, IL-1Ra and IL-10 are sequentially induced by both sternotomy and CPB, representing sequential immunologic stimulation during the cardiac operation.

Activation of the alternative complement pathway by artificial extracorporeal surfaces is relevant to several clinical applications such as cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB), thoracic organ transplantation and hemodialysis. In the pediatric cardiac surgery population, complement mediators have been associated with systemic inflammation, post-operative morbidity and delayed recovery. Small children require CPB circuit prepared with allogeneic blood products and these sanguineous primes have substantially higher concentrations of biologically active anaphylatoxins C3a and C5a relative to the patient’s baseline circulation. Sequential samples were collected during forty-five ex-vivo sanguineous prime preparations of CPB circuits coated with phosphorylcholine, as a biocompatibility technology, to characterize complement activation in this context. We observed and quantified evidence of alternative and terminal complement pathway activation indicated by dynamic concentration increases of C3a, C3b, C5a and terminal complement complex. Circuit exposure time was a predictor of only C3a concentration in multivariable generalized linear mixed-effects models. Despite modern biocompatibility technology, there is significant alternative complement activation during ex-vivo sanguineous CPB prime preparation. Patient exposure to this activated mediator burden during CPB could promote systemic endothelial inflammation with negative end-organ and post-operative clinical impacts. Further research is required to evaluate and inhibit complement responses to artificial surfaces broadly used for clinical care.

Background Cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) causes systemic inflammation during pediatric cardiac surgery, which can contribute to post-operative organ dysfunction and prolonged recovery. This study aims to identify key inflammatory mediators related to this clinically significant immunologic response. Methods Pediatric patients were enrolled in a single-arm prospective clinical study (NCT05154864) and received standard cardiac operation, CPB and subzero-balance ultrafiltration. Arterial samples were taken before CPB initiation and immediately after weaning, and concentrations of 33 inflammatory mediators were assayed. A principal component analysis with hierarchical clustering (PCA-HCPC) included inflammatory mediator concentrations measured at the end of CPB, validated peak post-operative clinical scores, ventilation time and intensive care length of stay. Mahalanobis distance assessed statistical differences between clusters. Spearman’s correlation described the linear relationship between mediator concentrations at the end of CPB and intensive care length of stay. Results are median (IQR). Results Forty consecutive patients were enrolled; the majority were male (58%), age of 7.3 (1.7–39.0) months and weight of 6.7 (4.6–14.9) kg. The PCA-HCPC revealed activated complement factors along with all peak clinical scores and prolonged intensive care requirements in the same cluster. Cytokine, chemokine, and leukocyte adhesion molecule concentrations were found in two other distinct clusters (Mahalanobis distance = 16.5; p  = 0.004 and Mahalanobis distance = 17.4; p  = 5.8 × 10 –4 ). Mediator concentrations of C2 (Rho = 0.50; p  = 0.001), C3 (Rho = 0.58; p  = 1.1 × 10 –4 ), C3b (Rho = 0.47; p  = 0.002), C5 (Rho = 0.48; p  = 0.002) and C5a (Rho = 0.63; 1.7 × 10 –5 ) showed linear correlations with intensive care unit length of stay. Conclusions Activated complement factors, but not pro-inflammatory cytokines or chemokines, were most related to cardiopulmonary dysfunction and prolonged recovery in this novel analysis. Investigation of therapies that inhibit complement to dampen CPB-associated inflammation and enhance recovery after pediatric cardiac surgery is warranted. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT05154864

IntroductionSurgical repair is the standard of care for most infants and children with congenital heart disease. Cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) is required to facilitate these operations but elicits a systemic inflammatory response, leading to postoperative organ dysfunction, morbidity and prolonged recovery after the surgery. Subzero-balance ultrafiltration (SBUF) has been shown to extract proinflammatory cytokines continuously throughout the CPB exposure. We hypothesize that a high-exchange SBUF (H-SBUF) will have a clinically relevant anti-inflammatory effect compared with a low-exchange SBUF (L-SBUF).Methods and analysisThe ULTrafiltration to enhance Recovery After paediatric cardiac surgery (ULTRA) trial is a randomised, double-blind, parallel-group randomised trial conducted in a single paediatric cardiac surgery centre. Ninety-six patients less than 15 kg undergoing cardiac surgery with CPB will be randomly assigned to H-SBUF during CPB or L-SBUF during CPB in a 1:1 ratio with stratification by The Society of Thoracic Surgeons-European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (STAT) score 1 and STAT score 2–5. The primary outcome is peak postoperative vasoactive-ventilation-renal score. Time series and peak values of vasoactive-ventilation renal score, vasoactive-inotrope score, ventilation index and oxygenation index will be collected. Secondary clinical outcomes include acute kidney injury, ventilator-free days, inotrope-free days, low cardiac output syndrome, mechanical circulatory support, intensive care unit length of stay and operative mortality. Secondary biomarker data include cytokine, chemokine and complement factor concentrations at baseline before CPB, at the end of CPB exposure and 24 hours following CPB. Analyses will be conducted on an intention-to-treat principle.Ethics and disseminationThe study has ethics approval (#1024932 dated August 31, 2021) and enrolment commenced in September 2021. The primary manuscript and any subsequent analyses will be submitted for peer-reviewed publication.Trial registration number NCT04920643.

Due to public health restrictions, the COVID-19 pandemic required significant changes in the delivery of child and adolescent mental health services. The use of virtual care for balancing access with treatment needs requires a shared decision between clients, caregivers, and clinicians. One aspect for consideration is the length of treatment necessary to achieve desired outcomes and whether it differs by treatment modality. Insights gained from the comparison of treatment duration between modalities may improve our understanding of the effectiveness of virtual care and help to inform clinical decision-making and effective use of resources. We sought to improve our understanding of how treatment modality impacts treatment duration for children and adolescents accessing Community Mental Health and Addictions services at IWK Health following the rapid implementation of virtual care in March 2020. In this study, we aimed to compare the duration of treatment within episodes of care by treatment modality and determine whether client characteristics, system factors, or time period influenced any associations between treatment modality and treatment duration. Episodes of care were created using administrative data collected by the IWK Mental Health and Addictions program and used as the unit of analysis. A multilevel mixed-effects negative binomial model and time-to-event analysis were used to model the association between treatment modality and treatment duration, both in visits and days, adjusting for client and system characteristics. Virtual episodes of care had more visits than in-person episodes between April 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021 (incidence rate ratio [IRR] 1.59, 95% CI 1.38-1.83), and April 1, 2021, and March 31, 2022 (IRR 1.22, 95% CI 1.10-1.35), whereas between April 1, 2022, and March 31, 2023, virtual episodes of care were associated with fewer visits (IRR 0.82, 95% CI 0.74-0.91). Comparable results were seen for treatment duration in days (2020-2021: hazard ratio [HR] 0.64, 95% CI 0.54-0.76; 2021-2022: HR 0.80, 95% CI 0.70-0.90; and 2022-2023: HR 1.10, 95% CI 0.97-1.25). These differences by time period relative to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and switch to virtual care were consistent after adjusting for client and system characteristics. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the association between virtual or in-person treatment modality and treatment duration. While initially longer than in-person episodes of care, both in numbers of visits and length in days, over time the average length of episodes conducted mainly virtually had attenuated. These findings may be due to growing comfort with the technology or client factors not adequately captured in administrative data. This information can be valuable to clinicians, clients, and their families regarding expected treatment timelines and aid in informing service planning.

BackgroundRisk-adjusted rates of hospital readmission are a common indicator of hospital performance. There are concerns that current risk-adjustment methods do not account for the many factors outside the hospital setting that can affect readmission rates. Not accounting for these external factors could result in hospitals being unfairly penalized when they discharge patients to communities that are less able to support care transitions and disease management. While incorporating adjustments for the myriad of social and economic factors outside of the hospital setting could improve the accuracy of readmission rates as a performance measure, doing so has limited feasibility due to the number of potential variables and the paucity of data to measure them. This paper assesses a practical approach to addressing this problem: using mixed-effect regression models to estimate case-mix adjusted risk of readmission by community of patients’ residence (community risk of readmission) as a complementary performance indicator to hospital readmission rates.MethodsUsing hospital discharge data and mixed-effect regression models with a random intercept for community, we assess if case-mix adjusted community risk of readmission can be useful as a quality indicator for community-based care. Our outcome of interest was an unplanned repeat hospitalisation. Our primary exposure was community of residence.ResultsCommunity of residence is associated with case-mix adjusted risk of unplanned repeat hospitalisation. Community risk of readmission can be estimated and mapped as indicators of the ability of communities to support both care transitions and long-term disease management.ConclusionContextualising readmission rates through a community lens has the potential to help hospitals and policymakers improve discharge planning, reduce penalties to hospitals, and most importantly, provide higher quality care to the people that they serve.

The social skills rating system (SSRS) is used to assess social skills and competence in children and adolescents. While its characteristics based on United States samples (US) are published, corresponding Australian figures are unavailable. Using a 4-week retest design, we examined the internal consistency, retest reliability and measurement error (ME) of the SSRS secondary student form (SSF) in a sample of Year 7 students (N = 187), from five randomly selected public schools in Perth, western Australia. Internal consistency (IC) of the total scale and most subscale scores (except empathy) on the frequency rating scale was adequate to permit independent use. On the importance rating scale, most IC estimates for girls fell below the benchmark. Test-retest estimates of the total scale and subscales were insufficient to permit reliable use. ME of the total scale score (frequency rating) for boys was equivalent to the US estimate, while that for girls was lower than the US error. ME of the total scale score (importance rating) was larger than the error using the frequency rating scale. The study finding supports the idea of using multiple informants (e.g. teacher and parent reports), not just student as recommended in the manual. Future research needs to substantiate the clinical meaningfulness of the MEs calculated in this study by corroborating them against the respective Minimum Clinically Important Difference (MCID).