Development and validation of a natural language processing system to assess quality of physician communication in prostate cancer consultations.

Background: AUA guidelines for shared decision making (SDM) in prostate cancer recommend discussion of five content areas in consultations: (1) cancer severity (tumor risk (TR), pathology results (PR)); (2) life expectancy (LE); (3) cancer prognosis (CP); (4) baseline urinary and erectile function (UF and EF); and (5) treatment side effects (erectile dysfunction (ED), urinary incontinence (UI), and irritative urinary symptoms (LUTS)). However, patient retention of information after the visit and inconsistent risk communication by physicians are barriers to informed SDM. We sought to develop natural language processing (NLP) models based on recorded consultations to provide key information to patients and audit quality of physician communication.

They Will Come, You Must Build It: A Modified Delphi Process Applied to Preparing Acute Care Facilities Infrastructure for High-Consequence Infectious Diseases.

Patients with suspected or confirmed high-consequence infectious diseases (HCIDs) may present for care at any acute care facility. However, there are limited data to inform recommendations for the design, maintenance, and operation of isolation spaces for patients with suspected or confirmed HCIDs. To address this gap, we developed consensus statements by convening a group of 29 subject matter experts to participate in a modified Delphi process facilitated by a validated tool (the RAND-developed ExpertLens system).

Assessing the feasibility and likelihood of policy options to lower specialty drug costs.

Specialty drugs are high-cost medications often used to treat complex chronic conditions. Even with insurance coverage, patients may face very high out-of-pocket costs, which in turn may restrict access. While the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 included policies designed to reduce specialty drug costs, relatively few policies have been enacted during the past decade.

Gestational weight gain below recommendations and adverse maternal and child health outcomes for pregnancies with overweight or obesity: a United States cohort study.

Background: The current Institute of Medicine (IOM) pregnancy weight gain guidelines were developed using the best available evidence but were limited by substantial knowledge gaps. Some have raised concern that the guidelines for individuals affected by overweight or obesity are too high and contribute to short- and long-term complications for the mother and child.

Objectives: To determine the association between pregnancy weight gain below the lower limit of the current IOM recommendations and risk of 10 adverse maternal and child health outcomes among individuals with overweight and obesity.

Quality Indicators for Transition from Pediatric to Adult Care for Youth With Chronic Conditions: Proposal for an Online Modified Delphi Study.

Background: The transition from pediatric to adult care poses a significant health system-level challenge impeding the delivery of quality health services for youth with chronic health conditions. In Canada and globally, the transition to adult care is regarded as a top priority in adolescent health in need of readily applicable, adaptable, and relevant national metrics to evaluate and benchmark transition success across disease populations and clinical care settings. Unfortunately, existing literature fails to account for the lack of engagement from youth and caregivers in developing indicators, and its applicability across chronic conditions, primary care involvement, and health equity considerations.

Patient, caregiver and other knowledge user engagement in consensus-building healthcare initiatives: a scoping review protocol.

Introduction: Patient engagement and integrated knowledge translation (iKT) processes improve health outcomes and care experiences through meaningful partnerships in consensus-building initiatives and research. Consensus-building is essential for engaging a diverse group of experienced knowledge users in co-developing and supporting a solution where none readily exists or is less optimal. Patients and caregivers provide invaluable insights for building consensus in decision-making around healthcare, policy and research.

Variation in communication of side effects in prostate cancer treatment consultations.

Background: Effective communication of treatment side effects (SE) is critical for shared decision-making (SDM) in localized prostate cancer. We sought to qualitatively characterize how physicians communicate SE in consultations.

Methods: We transcribed 50 initial prostate cancer treatment consultations across nine multidisciplinary providers (Urologists, Radiation Oncologists, Medical Oncologists) at our tertiary referral, academic center.

Use of Persuasive Language in Communication of Risk during Prostate Cancer Treatment Consultations.

Background: Physician treatment preference may influence how risks are communicated in prostate cancer consultations. We identified persuasive language used when describing cancer prognosis, life expectancy, and side effects in relation to a physician's recommendation for aggressive (surgery/radiation) or nonaggressive (active surveillance/watchful waiting) treatment.

Methods: A qualitative analysis was performed on transcribed treatment consultations of 40 men with low- and intermediate-risk prostate cancer across 10 multidisciplinary providers.

Do current pregnancy weight gain guidelines balance risks of adverse maternal and child health in a United States cohort?

Background: The Institute of Medicine pregnancy weight gain guidelines were developed without evidence linking high weight gain to maternal cardiometabolic disease and child obesity. The upper limit of current recommendations may be too high for the health of the pregnant individual and child.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to identify the range of pregnancy weight gain for pregnancies within a normal body mass index (BMI) range that balances the risks of high and low weight gain by simultaneously considering 10 different health conditions.

Expert consensus-based guidance on approaches to opioid management in individuals with advanced cancer-related pain and nonmedical stimulant use.

Background: Clinicians treating cancer-related pain with opioids regularly encounter nonmedical stimulant use (i.e., methamphetamine, cocaine), yet there is little evidence-based management guidance.

Disciplinary trends in the use of the Delphi method: A bibliometric analysis.

The Delphi method is an iterative, anonymous, group-based process for eliciting and aggregating opinion on a topic to explore the existence of consensus among experts. The year 2023 marks the 60th anniversary of the first peer-reviewed journal article on the Delphi method. Originally developed for operations research, this method is now applied extensively by researchers representing diverse scientific fields.

The Effect of the Medicare Advantage Value-Based Insurance Design Model Test on Utilization in 2017.

In 2015, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced the Medicare Advantage (MA) Value-Based Insurance Design (VBID) model test, which allows MA insurers to use flexible benefit design strategies, such as reduced cost-sharing, to encourage beneficiaries with chronic disease to use high-value care. During the first year of implementation (2017), nine MA insurers offered VBID in 45 health plans to a total of 96 053 eligible beneficiaries. We used MA encounter data to estimate the impact of VBID on health services utilization in 2017 using a difference-in-differences research design.

Variation in Communication of Competing Risks of Mortality in Prostate Cancer Treatment Consultations.

Purpose: Men with prostate cancer prefer patient-specific, quantitative assessments of longevity in shared decision making. We sought to characterize how physicians communicate the 3 components of competing risks-life expectancy (LE), cancer prognosis and treatment-related survival benefit-in treatment consultations.

Materials And Methods: Conversation related to LE, cancer prognosis and treatment-related survival benefit was identified in transcripts from treatment consultations of 42 men with low- and intermediate-risk disease across 10 multidisciplinary providers.

Development of a Metric to Detect and Decrease Low-Value Prescribing in Older Adults.

Importance: Metrics that detect low-value care in common forms of health care data, such as administrative claims or electronic health records, primarily focus on tests and procedures but not on medications, representing a major gap in the ability to systematically measure low-value prescribing.

Objective: To develop a scalable and broadly applicable metric that contains a set of quality indicators (EVOLV-Rx) for use in health care data to detect and reduce low-value prescribing among older adults and that is informed by diverse stakeholders' perspectives.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This qualitative study used an online modified-Delphi method to convene an expert panel of 15 physicians and pharmacists.

The impact of panel composition and topic on stakeholder perspectives: Generating hypotheses from online maternal and child health modified-Delphi panels.

Introduction: Multistakeholder engagement is crucial for conducting health services research. Delphi-based methodologies combining iterative rounds of questions with feedback on and discussion of group results are a well-documented approach to multistakeholder engagement. This study develops hypotheses about the impact of panel composition and topic on the propensity and meaningfulness of response changes in multistakeholder modified-Delphi panels.

Expert Panel Consensus on Management of Advanced Cancer-Related Pain in Individuals With Opioid Use Disorder.

Importance: Opioid use disorder (OUD) is an important comorbidity in individuals with advanced cancer, in whom pain is common. Full-agonist opioid medications are the cornerstone of cancer pain management, but the existing literature does not address how to manage cancer pain in patients with OUD.

Objective: To conduct an expert panel to develop consensus on the appropriateness of management of cancer pain in individuals with co-occurring advanced cancer and OUD.

Standardizing the Clinical Definition of Opioid Withdrawal in the Neonate.

Objective: To standardize the clinical definition of opioid withdrawal in neonates to address challenges in clinical care, quality improvement, research, and public policy for this patient population.

Study Design: Between October and December 2020, we conducted 2 modified-Delphi panels using ExpertLens, a virtual platform for performing iterative expert engagement panels. Twenty clinical experts specializing in care for the substance-exposed mother-neonate dyad explored the necessity of key evidence-based clinical elements in defining opioid withdrawal in the neonate leading to a diagnosis of neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS)/neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome (NOWS).

Improving Mental Health Guardianship: From Prevention to Treatment.

Objective: The authors sought to identify the most promising strategies for improving the mental health guardianship process in Los Angeles County for adults with mental illness who are gravely disabled.

Methods: In May and June 2019, 56 experts, working in hospitals or outpatient facilities or representing legal, advocacy, policy, or forensic organizations, participated in an online modified-Delphi panel, rating the ethical appropriateness, impact on care quality, efficiency, and feasibility of nine strategies for improvement of mental health guardianship. Agreement was determined with the RAND/UCLA appropriateness method, and comments were thematically analyzed.

Patient Preferences for Communication of Life Expectancy in Prostate Cancer Treatment Consultations.

This qualitative study examines patient preferences among men with prostate cancer for communications from clinicians about life expectancy.

Alignment Between Objective and Subjective Assessments of Health System Performance: Findings From a Mixed-Methods Study.

The article examines whether subjective performance assessments from health system executives match objective performance assessments and qualitatively explores ways to achieve high performance. We interviewed 138 C-suite executives of 24 health systems in California, Minnesota, Washington, and Wisconsin between 2017 and 2019. We used maximum variation sampling to select health systems to achieve diversity in performance on objective measures of clinical performance.

Informing the Development of a Standardized Clinical Definition of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome: Protocol for a Modified-Delphi Expert Panel.

Background: Neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) is a postnatal withdrawal syndrome that most commonly results from prenatal opioid exposure. Every 15 minutes, an infant is born in the United States with signs of NAS. The field lacks a standardized clinical definition of NAS, complicating discussions on programmatic and policy development to support opioid-exposed mothers and infants.