Bacterial Infections and Mycoses Commons^™

Prevalence Of Infectious Diseases Among 6078 Individuals With Down Syndrome In The United States, Veronica Fitzpatrick, Anne Rivelli, Sagar Chaudhari, Laura Chicoine, Gengjie Jia, Andrey Rzhetsky, Brian Chicoine

Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews

A recent disease prevalence study of the largest documented Down syndrome (DS) cohort in the United States strongly suggested significant disparity in general infectious disease conditions among individuals with DS versus those without DS. In this follow-up retrospective analysis, we explored these differences in greater detail by calculating prevalence of 52 infectious diseases, across 28 years of data among 6078 individuals with DS and 30,326 age- and sex-matched controls, abstracted from electronic medical records within a large Midwestern health system. We found that the DS cohort had higher prevalence of pneumonias (including aspiration, viral, bacterial, pneumococcal, and unspecified/atypical); otitis externa; …

Use Of Urine Antigen Testing For Blastomyces In An Integrated Health System, Dennis J. Baumgardner

Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews

Purpose: Blastomycosis, an endemic fungal infection, mimics many other diseases. We explored the use of Blastomyces urine antigen (BuAg), reportedly the most sensitive noninvasive test, in clinical practice and compared it to other noninvasive tests.

Methods: A total of 836 BuAg tests performed on unique patients (first test only) at one large integrated health system from June 2013 to May 2016 were retrospectively reviewed to examine test characteristics and demographic features. Of these, 100 cases from 2015, a year containing a large local blastomycosis outbreak, were randomly selected for detailed analysis.

Results: Demographics for the BuAg-tested population: mean age 54.9 …

Decreasing Time To Broad Spectrum Antibiotics For Septic Patients In The Emergency Department, Joseph J. Zieminski, Emily E. Bryant

Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews

Background: Timely administration of broad spectrum antibiotics has been shown to be directly correlated with decreased mortality for patients with severe sepsis and septic shock. As such, both the Surviving Sepsis Campaign and the SEP-1 CMS measure recognize timely antibiotic administration as a cornerstone of therapy for patients with severe sepsis or septic shock.

Purpose: Decrease time to broad spectrum antibiotic administration for septic patients in the emergency department (ED) of Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center.

Methods: An alert within the electronic medical record was created to more rapidly identify potentially septic patients in the ED. After receiving the alert, …