Practice Pattern Variability in the Use of Pulmonary Arterial Catheters in Cardiac Surgery.

Objectives: To quantify intraoperative pulmonary arterial catheter (PAC) use during cardiac surgery and identify hospital-, anesthesiologist-, and patient-level factors associated with PAC utilization.

Design: A cross-sectional, observational study using generalized logistic mixed models to examine variations in PAC use.

Setting: Fifty-three US academic hospitals participating in the Multicenter Perioperative Outcomes Group (MPOG) national registry PARTICIPANTS: 145,343 adult patients undergoing cardiac surgery between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2022.

A Single-Center Descriptive Analysis of Interventions for Hypotension in Children: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

Background: Intraoperative hemodynamic management goals in pediatric patients vary significantly with age. Physiologic variability and the absence of a widely accepted definition of intraoperative hypotension contribute to inconsistent treatment thresholds and practice variation.

Aims: The primary aim was to observe which blood pressure thresholds in various age groups led to clinical intervention in noncardiac surgery.

Development and Evaluation of Machine Learning Models for the Identification of Surgical Site Infection in Electronic Health Records.

Surgical site infection (SSI) affects 160,000-300,000 patients per year in the United States, adversely impacting a wide range of patient- and health-system outcomes. Surveillance programs for SSI are essential to quality improvement and public health systems. However, the scope of SSI surveillance is currently limited by the resource-intensive nature of these activities, which are largely based on manual chart review.

Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Phosphate Abnormalities After Cardiac Surgery: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

Background: The clinical significance and incidence of phosphate abnormalities in cardiac surgery have not been investigated extensively. We hypothesize that phosphate abnormalities are associated with a longer time to tracheal extubation.

Methods: This was a single-center, retrospective cohort study in patients who underwent nontransplant cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass between August 2009 and December 2020.

Identifying Variation in Intraoperative Management of Brain-Dead Organ Donors and Opportunities for Improvement: A Multicenter Perioperative Outcomes Group Analysis.

Background: Intraoperative events and clinical management of deceased organ donors after brain death are poorly characterized and may consequently vary between hospitals and organ procurement organization (OPO) regions. In a multicenter cohort, we sought to estimate the incidence of hypotension and anesthetic and nonanesthetic medication use during organ recovery procedures.

Methods: We used data from electronic anesthetic records generated during organ recovery procedures from brain-dead adults across a Multicenter Perioperative Outcomes Group (MPOG) cohort of 14 US hospitals and 4 OPO regions (2014-2020).

Predicting Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest in the General Population Using Electronic Health Records.

Background: The majority of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCAs) occur among individuals in the general population, for whom there is no established strategy to identify risk. In this study, we assess the use of electronic health record (EHR) data to identify OHCA in the general population and define salient factors contributing to OHCA risk.

Methods: The analytical cohort included 2366 individuals with OHCA and 23 660 age- and sex-matched controls receiving health care at the University of Washington.

Large Language Model Capabilities in Perioperative Risk Prediction and Prognostication.

Importance: General-domain large language models may be able to perform risk stratification and predict postoperative outcome measures using a description of the procedure and a patient's electronic health record notes.

Objective: To examine predictive performance on 8 different tasks: prediction of American Society of Anesthesiologists Physical Status (ASA-PS), hospital admission, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, unplanned admission, hospital mortality, postanesthesia care unit (PACU) phase 1 duration, hospital duration, and ICU duration.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This prognostic study included task-specific datasets constructed from 2 years of retrospective electronic health records data collected during routine clinical care.

Intraoperative Prophylaxis with Palonosetron for Postoperative Nausea and/or Vomiting in Adults Undergoing Cardiothoracic Surgery Under General Anesthesia: A Single-Center Retrospective Study.

Objective: This study assessed the efficacy of palonosetron, alone or with dexamethasone, in reducing postoperative nausea and/or vomiting (PONV) and its impact on hospitalization duration in patients who undergo adult cardiothoracic surgery (CTS) under general anesthesia.

Design: This retrospective analysis involved 540 adult patients who underwent CTS from a single-center cohort, spanning surgeries between September 2021 and March 2023. Sensitivity, logistic, and Cox regression analyses evaluated antiemetic effects, PONV risk factors, and outcomes.

Public Health Informatics and the Perioperative Physician: Looking to the Future.

The role of informatics in public health has increased over the past few decades, and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has underscored the critical importance of aggregated, multicenter, high-quality, near-real-time data to inform decision-making by physicians, hospital systems, and governments. Given the impact of the pandemic on perioperative and critical care services (eg, elective procedure delays; information sharing related to interventions in critically ill patients; regional bed-management under crisis conditions), anesthesiologists must recognize and advocate for improved informatic frameworks in their local environments. Most anesthesiologists receive little formal training in public health informatics (PHI) during clinical residency or through continuing medical education.

Impact of Ketorolac on Reoperation for Hemorrhage After Pediatric Tonsillectomy: A Single-Center Retrospective Propensity-Matched Study.

Objective: To determine if perioperative ketorolac is associated with an increased rate of reoperation for hemorrhage after pediatric tonsillectomy at 30 days and 48 hours.

Study Design: Single-center retrospective propensity-matched study.

Setting: Quaternary pediatric hospital and ambulatory surgery center.

Perioperative Mortality of the COVID-19 Recovered Patient Compared to a Matched Control: A Multicenter Retrospective Cohort Study.

Background: Surgical procedures performed on patients with recent exposure to COVID-19 infection have been associated with increased mortality risk in previous studies. Accordingly, elective surgery is often delayed after infection. The study aimed to compare 30-day hospital mortality and postoperative complications (acute kidney injury, pulmonary complications) of surgical patients with a previous COVID-19 infection to a matched cohort of patients without known previous COVID-19.

Prediction of American Society of Anesthesiologists Physical Status Classification from preoperative clinical text narratives using natural language processing.

Background: Electronic health records (EHR) contain large volumes of unstructured free-form text notes that richly describe a patient's health and medical comorbidities. It is unclear if perioperative risk stratification can be performed directly from these notes without manual data extraction. We conduct a feasibility study using natural language processing (NLP) to predict the American Society of Anesthesiologists Physical Status Classification (ASA-PS) as a surrogate measure for perioperative risk.

Anesthesiology Performance Improvement and Reporting Exchange (ASPIRE) Quality Metrics in Patients Undergoing Decompressive Craniectomy and Endoscopic Clot Evacuation after Spontaneous Supratentorial Intracerebral Hemorrhage: A Retrospective Observational Study.

Background: We report adherence to 6 Anesthesiology Performance Improvement and Reporting Exchange (ASPIRE) quality metrics (QMs) relevant to patients undergoing decompressive craniectomy or endoscopic clot evacuation after spontaneous supratentorial intracerebral hemorrhage (sICH).

Methods: In this retrospective observational study, we describe adherence to the following ASPIRE QMs: acute kidney injury (AKI-01); mean arterial pressure < 65 mm Hg for less than 15 minutes (BP-03); myocardial injury (CARD-02); treatment of high glucose (> 200 mg/dL, GLU-03); reversal of neuromuscular blockade (NMB-02); and perioperative hypothermia (TEMP-03).

Result: The study included 95 patients (70% male) with median (interquartile range) age 55 (47 to 66) years and ICH score 2 (1 to 3) undergoing craniectomy (n=55) or endoscopic clot evacuation (n=40) after sICH.

Completion of an Enhanced Recovery Program in a Pediatric Ambulatory Surgery Center: A Quality Improvement Initiative.

Background: Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) was first established in 2001 focusing on recovery from complex surgical procedures in adults and recently expanded to ambulatory surgery. The evidence for ERAS in children is limited. In 2018, recognized experts began developing needed pediatric evidence.

Evaluating the role for regional analgesia in children with spina bifida: a retrospective observational study comparing the efficacy of regional versus systemic analgesia protocols following major urological surgery.

Introduction: Regional techniques are a key component of multimodal analgesia and help decrease opioid use perioperatively, but some techniques may not be suitable for all patients, such as those with spina bifida. We hypothesized peripheral regional catheters would reduce postoperative opioid use compared with no regional analgesia without increasing pain scores in pediatric patients with spina bifida undergoing major urological surgery.

Methods: A retrospective review of a multicenter database established for the study of enhanced recovery after surgery was performed of patients from 2009 to 2021 who underwent bladder augmentation or creation of catheterizable channels.

Liver Fibrosis Marker and Postoperative Mortality in Patients Without Overt Liver Disease.

Background: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) can progress to advanced fibrosis, which, in the nonsurgical population, is associated with poor hepatic and extrahepatic outcomes. Despite its high prevalence, NAFLD and related liver fibrosis may be overlooked during the preoperative evaluation, and the role of liver fibrosis as an independent risk factor for surgical-related mortality has yet to be tested. The aim of this study was to assess whether fibrosis-4 (FIB-4), which consists of age, aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and platelets, a validated marker of liver fibrosis, is associated with postoperative mortality in the general surgical population.

The incidence and outcomes of healthcare-associated respiratory tract infections in non-ventilated neurocritical care patients: Results of a 10-year cohort study.

The incidence of healthcare-associated respiratory tract infections in non-ventilated patients (NVA-HARTI) in neurosurgical intensive care units (ICUs) is unknown. The impact of NVA-HARTI on patient outcomes and differences between NVA-HARTI and ventilator-associated healthcare-associated respiratory tract infections (VA-HARTI) are poorly understood. Our objectives were to report the incidence, hospital length of stay (LOS), ICU LOS, and mortality in NVA-HARTI patients and compare these characteristics to VA-HARTI in neurocritical care patients.

Implementation of App-Based Diabetes Medication Management: Outpatient and Perioperative Clinical Decision Support.

Purpose Of Review: Outpatient and perioperative therapeutic decision making for patients with diabetes involves increasingly complex medical-decision making due to rapid advances in knowledge and treatment modalities. We sought to review mobile decision support tools available to clinicians for this essential and increasingly difficult task, and to highlight the development and implementation of novel mobile applications for these purposes.

Recent Findings: We found 211 mobile applications related to diabetes from the search, but only five were found to provide clinical decision support for outpatient diabetes management and none for perioperative decision support.