Digital Commons Network^™

Quality Domains In Home-Based Pediatric Hospice And Palliative Care: Adolescent And Young Adult Perspectives, Daniel H Grossoehme, Claire A Crawford, Jhansi Chandra Ellakula, Toluwalase Ajayi, Justin N Baker, Sarah Friebert, Lisa Humphrey, Jillann Jarrell, Rachel Thienprayoon, Pamela S Hinds

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: Current United States palliative care practice guidelines are intended to cover care across all age groups. Previous research with pediatric providers and caregivers concluded that pediatric hospice and palliative care have unique attributes. Not known is how adolescent hospice and palliative care patients understand quality palliative care. The purpose of this study was to characterize and define quality of care domains as described by adolescent and young adult patients receiving home-based hospice and palliative care.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews with 10-26 year-olds who received home-based hospice and/or palliative care visits in the prior three years at six diverse sites in …

Ethical Considerations For Hospice Patients In Inpatient Settings: A Systematic Review And Thematic Analysis, Matthew D. Harry

Honors Theses and Capstones

Hospice care is intended to prioritize comfort, dignity, symptom management, and quality of life for individuals with life-limiting illness. However, when hospice-eligible patients are managed within inpatient hospital settings, significant ethical challenges frequently emerge due to the tension between comfort-focused care and the curative, intervention-driven structure of acute care medicine. This paper presents a systematic literature review and thematic analysis examining the ethical considerations surrounding hospice patients in inpatient settings, with particular attention to clinical decision-making, communication, prognostic uncertainty, moral distress among nurses, and conflicts involving patient autonomy and family wishes. A structured review of peer-reviewed literature was conducted using …

Potential Mechanisms Of Influence Between Spiritual Practices And Cognitive Health: A Systematic Review And Conceptual Model, Katherine Carroll Britt, Hayoung Oh, Augustine Cassis Obeng Boateng, Sherry Morgan, Sato Ashida, Corey Nagel, Roland J Thorpe, Harold G Koenig

Staff and Researcher Publications

Background/Objectives: This systematic review summarizes the evidence regarding potential mechanisms underlying the relationship between spiritual practices and cognitive health in adults. The review was performed based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) checklist.

Methods: An extensive search of six electronic databases (i.e., PubMed, PsycINFO, Embase, Sociological Abstracts, ATLA, CINAHL) was conducted using keywords related to spiritual practices, religious activities, and cognitive health from 1 January 2000 to December 2025. The quality of the included studies was assessed using the Mixed Methods Appraisal tool aligned with the study design.

Results: A total of …

Family Caregivers' Perspectives On Challenges And Support Needs In Hospital-Based Palliative Care For Persons Living With Dementia, Jung Kwak, Anita Chary, Sarah Stayer, Kwaku Duah Oppong, Sumin Yoon, Snehal Patel, Elizabeth A Kvale

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Palliative care needs of hospitalized persons living with dementia (PLWD) and their family caregivers remain poorly understood. This mixed-methods study explored caregivers' perspectives on challenges and support needs when hospitalized PLWD received specialist palliative care consultations. Thirty-two caregivers were recruited from two hospitals; 18 completed interviews and surveys, and 14 completed surveys only. Participants were racially and ethnically diverse (19% Black or African American, 34% Latino or Hispanic). Most identified as women (65%) and adult children (56%). Commonly reported challenges included managing health issues (59%), emotional distress (56%), and decision-making (47%). Thematic analysis of interviews revealed three themes: the value …

Exploring Patients' Perceptions Of An Advance Care Planning Intervention In The Emergency Department: A Qualitative Study, Youkie Shiozawa, Saaya Morton, Nanako Shirai, Hannah Oelschlager, Lucy Kiernat, Anita N Chary, Anna C Revette, Adrian Haimovich, Smit Desai, Kai-Wei Chang, Shan W Liu, Maura Kennedy, Mara A Schonberg, Kei Ouchi

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Objectives: Emergency department (ED) visits offer opportunities for seriously ill patients to formulate future medical care goals, yet ED clinicians lack practical strategies for these conversations. ED GOAL, a behavioral intervention, engages seriously ill yet clinically stable older adults in the ED to address advance care planning (ACP) with their outpatient clinicians. In a randomized trial, goals-of-care documentation was significantly higher in the intervention group compared to controls after three (24.3% vs. 9.9%, p = 0.03) and 6 months (31.4% vs. 12.7%, p < 0.01). This study is a sub-analysis to learn about intervention arm participants' perceived benefits and obstacles of the intervention.

Methods: We conducted semi-structured interviews between October 2022 and August 2024 (N = 52) with intervention-arm patients …

Implementation Of Electronic Triggers To Identify Diagnostic Errors In Emergency Departments, Viralkumar Vaghani, Ashish Gupta, Usman Mir, Li Wei, Daniel R Murphy, Umair Mushtaq, Dean F Sittig, Andrew J Zimolzak, Hardeep Singh

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Importance: Missed diagnosis can lead to preventable patient harm.

Objective: To develop and implement a portfolio of electronic triggers (e-triggers) and examine their performance for identifying missed opportunities in diagnosis (MODs) in emergency departments (EDs).

Design, setting, and participants: In this retrospective medical record review study of ED visits at 1321 Veterans Affairs health care sites, rules-based e-triggers were developed and implemented using a national electronic health record repository. These e-triggers targeted 6 high-risk presentations for MODs in treat-and-release ED visits. A high-risk stroke e-trigger was applied to treat-and-release ED visits from January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2020. A …

The Benefits Of Art Therapy On Stress And Anxiety Of Oncology Patients During Treatment, Helen Shiepe

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Within the last ten years research on art therapy and its positive impact on oncology patients’ stress and anxiety during treatment has been minimal. Oncology patients whether they are children or adults when diagnosed experience similar reactions due to their diagnosis, treatment, and in some cases end of life care. The current question is whether or not art therapy does have a positive impact on decreasing the stress and anxiety with oncology patients while undergoing treatment. Deane, Fitch & Carmen (2000), discussed art therapy as a healing art that is “intended to integrate physical, emotional, and spiritual care by facilitating …

National Cancer Control Plan Of The Korea: Current Status And The Fourth Plan (2021-2025), Kyu-Tae Han, Jae Kwan Jun, Jeong-Soo Im

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Cancer management has become a major policy goal for the government of the Korea. As such, the government introduced the National Cancer Control Plan (NCCP) to reduce the individual and social burdens caused by cancer and to promote national health. During the past 25 years, 3 phases of the NCCP have been completed. During this time, the NCCP has changed significantly in all aspects of cancer control from prevention to survival. The targets for cancer control are increasing, and although some blind spots remain, new demands are emerging. The government initiated the fourth NCCP in March 2021, with the vision …

The Covid-19 Pandemic: Early Ripple Effects In Pediatric Palliative Care, Linda Marisol Bustamante, Regina Okhuysen-Cawley, Julia Downing, Stephen R Connor, Mary Ann Muckaden, Marianne Phillips, Andrea Icaza, Nicole Garzon, Yuriko Nakashima, Kelsi Morgan, David Mauser, Michelle Grunauer

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Palliative care, which aims to provide comprehensive, interdisciplinary, holistic care to children, adolescents and adults with life-threatening, and ultimately life-limiting conditions, is a discipline that has emerged as an integral component of healthcare systems throughout the world. Although the value of life-affirming palliative care (PC) has been shown across many domains, funding and acceptance of palliative care teams have been variable: some hospital systems have free-standing, dedicated interdisciplinary teams while, in many instances, palliative care services are provided "pro bono" by individuals with a special interest in the discipline, who provide PC in addition to other responsibilities. In this article, …

Seroprevalence Of Covid-19 Igg Antibody In Resident And Fellow Physicians In Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Analysis Of A Cross-Sectional Survey, Dennis J. Baumgardner, Alexander Schwank, Jessica J. F. Kram, Wilhelm Lehmann, Jacob Bidwell, Tricia La Fratta, Kenneth Copeland

Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews

Purpose: Medical trainees are likely at differential risk of exposure to COVID-19 per respective clinical activity. We sought to determine the seroprevalence of COVID-19 antibody (Ab) among resident and fellow physicians with varying degrees of exposure to COVID-19.

Methods: A cross-sectional study of Milwaukee-based resident and fellow physicians, encompassing December 2019–June 2020, was conducted. Relevant variables of interest were ascertained by survey and payroll data, and Abbott ARCHITECT Ab test (index cut-off of ≥ 1.4) was performed. Descriptive statistics were generated, with 95% CI calculated for the study’s primary outcome of seroprevalence.

Results: Among survey respondents (92 of 148, 62%), …

Use Of Ecomaps In Qualitative Health Research, Veena Manja, Ananya Nrusimha, Harriet Macmillan, Lisa Schwartz Dr, Susan Jack

The Qualitative Report

Qualitative health research plays a central role in exploring individuals’ experiences and perceptions of wellness, illness, and healthcare services. Visual tools are increasingly used for data elicitation. An ecomap is a visual tool that applies ecosystems theory to human communities and relationships to provide an illustration of the quality of relationships. We describe the use of ecomaps in qualitative health research. Searches across eight databases identified 407 citations. We screened them in duplicate to identify 129 publications that underwent full text review and included 73 in the final synthesis. We classified and summarized data based on iterative comparisons across sources. …

A Neglected Causative Agent In Diabetic Foot Infection: A Retrospective Evaluation Of 13 Patients With Fungal Etiology, Anil Murat Ozturk, Meltem Taşbakan, Di̇lek Yeşi̇m Meti̇n, Can Yener, Serhat Uysal, Ilgin Yildirim Şi̇mşi̇r, İlgen Ertam, Hüsnü Pullukçu, Bi̇lgi̇n Arda, Şevki̇ Çeti̇nkalp

Turkish Journal of Medical Sciences

Clinicians often neglect fungal infections and do not routinely investigate deep tissue from the wound for fungal culture and sensitivity due to insufficient information in the literature. In this study, we aimed to evaluate fungal etiology of invasive fungal diabetic foot which is rarely reported in the literature.Materials and methods: The patients who were unresponsive to antibiotic therapy and those with positive fungal in bone or deep tissue culture were enrolled in the study. Detailed hospital records were retrieved for demographics and clinical features. Results: A total of 13 patients who were diagnosed with invasive fungal diabetic foot (ten females, …

Gadgets And Grieving: A Chronological Analysis On The Ways In Which Advancements In Medical Technologies Have Altered The Grieving Process, Grace Mcnair

Dialogue & Nexus

Since the 1940s, both end-of-life care and advancements in medical technologies have expanded exponentially. This article explores the advancements in medical technologies and how these have altered the way that Western society grieves death. With the capabilities to prolong life, the family, the patient, and the medical team, all grieve the end of life in different ways. This article provides a chronological analysis of palliative care, hospice care, and various medical advancements. These changes in medicine are then paralleled with alterations in the bereavement process. This article explores historical narratives of Western society’s transformation of grief through the lens of …