Healthcare Quality According to ICU Level of Care

Introduction: Little is known about the quality of healthcare in intensive care units (ICUs) in Poland. Data on patients hospitalized in ICUs in Warsaw and the results of their treatment are scarce. This information, crucial for improving the quality of ICU healthcare services, is not collected routinely. Quality indicators are essential in the concept of holistic quality management. Implementation of these indicators in ICUs is a complex and time-consuming process. Systematic increase in demand for quality assessment tools that can reflect real conditions of the practices of ICUs, prompts the search for effective solutions. Methods: The study included 12,155 patients hospitalized in 16 ICUs of Warsaw hospitals (8 ICUs, n = 3293 of the first level of care, and 8 ICUs, n = 8862 of the second level) between 1st January 2017 and 31st December 2018. ICUs in pediatric and oncological hospitals were excluded from the study. Characteristics and demography of patients as well as the structure, treatment and human resources of the ICUs in Warsaw were analyzed. Length of stay, unexpected extubations, nosocomial infections, ICU readmissions and standardized mortality ratios (SMR) were retrieved from National Health Fund, Ministry of Health, and other public databases. Results: In primary level ICUs patients’ age (66.42 vs. 64.43 years;p = 0.005) and comorbidity rate (30.56% vs. 22.78%, p = 0.037) were higher when compared to ICUs of the second level of care. The crude mortality rate in ICUs in Warsaw was significantly higher than in other EU countries and differed between ICUs of the first and the second level (34.77% vs. 24.53%, respectively;p = 0.004). SMRs were however very low: 0.71 and 0.64 (ns), respectively. ICU readmission rate, unexpected extubations, central catheter related infections, and length of stay were identical in both groups. More patients were admitted to ICU form emergency department and/or discharged home in Level 1 ICUs (18.9% vs 12.9%, p Conclusions: There are no major differences in quality of care provided by Level 1 and Level 2 ICUs in Poland, although more rigorous adhesion to admission and discharge policies is needed. Implementation of the instruments for assessing quality of ICUs including benchmarking, self-assessment of departments and evaluation of changes resulting from audits according to the Deming cycle is of utmost importance. Standardization of quality measures and markers, communication, and cooperation in reporting and creation of ICU medical registers is necessary to improve the quality of healthcare.

Burden of celiac disease in the Mediterranean area

AIM: To estimate the burden of undiagnosed celiac disease (CD) in the Mediterranean area in terms of morbidity, mortality and health cost. METHODS: For statistics regarding the population of each country in the Mediterranean area, we accessed authoritative international sources (World Bank, World Health Organization and United Nations). The prevalence of CD was obtained for most countries from published reports. An overall prevalence rate of 1% cases/total population was finally estimated to represent the frequency of the disease in the area, since none of the available conf idence intervals of the reported rates significantly excluded this rate. The distribution of symptoms and complications was obtained from reliable reports in the same cohort. A standardized mortality rate of 1.8 was obtained from recent reports. Crude health cost was estimated for the years between symptoms and diagnosis for adults and children, and was standardized for purchasing power parity to account for the different economic prof iles amongst Mediterranean countries. RESULTS: In the next 10 years, the Mediterranean area will have about half a billion inhabitants, of which 120 million will be children. The projected number of CD diagnoses in 2020 is 5 million cases (1 million celiac children), with a relative increase of 11% compared to 2010. Based on the 2010 rate, there will be about 550 000 symptomatic adults and about 240 000 sick children: 85% of the symptomatic patients will suffer from gastrointestinal complaints, 40% are likely to have anemia, 30% will likely have osteopenia, 20% of children will have short stature, and 10% will have abnormal liver enzymes. The estimated standardized medical costs for symptomatic celiac patients during the delay between symptom onset and diagnosis (mean 6 years for adults, 2 years for children) will be about €4 billion (€387 million for children) over the next 10 years. A delay in diagnosis is expected to increase mortality: about 600 000 celiac patients will die in the next 10 years, with an excess of 44.4% vs age-and sexmatched controls. CONCLUSION: In the near future, the burden of CD will increase tremendously. Few Mediterranean countries are able to face this expanding epidemic alone.

COHORT STUDY ON ASSOCIATION OF SMOKING AND AIR POLLUTION WITH LUNG CANCER AMONG 210,000 PERSONS IN SHANGHAI

Survey on smoking habit and other related factors has been carried out among 110 , 000 persons in urban area and 100, 000 persons in suburb and outar suburb area. The degrees of air pollution among three areas are different and the urban area is the one with the heaviest degree and the outer suburb with the lowest. Study on the relationship between smoking, air pollution and lung cancer has been carried out among the residents with the age of 40 years old and over in the three areas. The subjects were followed up for six years in urban area and five years in suburb and outer suburb. The total number of lung cancer death found in this period was 828. Most of these diagnosis were classified as group of high (I or II) degree. For nonsmoking, there were no significant differences of standardized mortality radio (SMR) of lung cancer among three areas. For male smokers. the highest SMR of lung cancer was seen in urban area. the lowest in outer suburb and these differences reached the significant lever. Cigarette smoking was significantly associated with increased risk of lung cancer by comparing the data between smokers and non-smokera in the three areas. Also, it was showed that the combined effect of smoking with air pollution probably existed. The age-specific mortality rates for lung cancer among non-smokers in Shanghai urban were much higher than those in West Europe and North America , which indicated that risk factors other than smoking may exist.

Results of mass endoscopic examination for gastric cancer in Kamigoto Hospital,Nagasaki Prefecture

AIM:To examine how the introduction of endoscopy to gastric cancer screening affected survival prognosis in a regional population. METHODS: The subjects comprised 4261 residents of Kamigoto,Nagasaki Prefecture,who underwent gastric X-ray examination for gastric cancer screening from 1991 to 1995,and all 7178 residents who underwent endoscopic examination for the same purpose from 1996 to 2003. The analysis evaluated trends in age-adjusted gastric cancer mortality rates and standard mortality ratios (SMRs) among the Kamigoto residents. RESULTS: According to demographic statistics,the 1995 and 2000 age-adjusted gastric cancer mortality rates in Nagasaki Prefecture (per 100 000 population) were 42.6 and 37.3 for males and 18.6 and 16.0 for females,while the corresponding rates in Kamigoto before and after the introduction of endoscopic screening were respectively 51.9 and 28.0,and 26.6 and 6.9. The data obtained in this study were divided into those for two periods,1990-1996 and 1997-2006,and SMRs were calculated separately for males and females. For the first period,the SMR was 1.04 (95% CI 0.50-1.58) for males and 1.54 (95% CI 0.71-2.38) for females,while for the second period the SMR was 0.71 (95% CI 0.33-1.10) for males and 0.62 (95% CI 0.19-1.05) for females. CONCLUSION: Following the introduction of endoscopic examination,gastric cancer death rates decreased in Kamigoto.

Is age just a number: pancreaticoduodenectomy in elderly patients?

Pancreatic cancer incidence is increasing worldwide.While the developed countries have seen a greater increase in the age-standardized incidence rate of pancreatic cancer（29%from 1990-2013）,developing countries are also not spared（10%increase during the same time period）.

Performance of Simplified Acute Physiology Score 3 in Predicting Hospital Mortality in Emergency Intensive Care Unit

Background： Since the 1980s, severity of illness scoring systems has gained increasing popularity in Intensive Care Units （ICUs）. Physicians used them for predicting mortality and assessing illness severity in clinical trials. The objective of this study was to assess the performance of Simplified Acute Physiology Score 3 （SAPS 3） and its customized equation for Australasia （Australasia SAPS 3, SAPS 3 [AUS]） in predicting clinical prognosis and hospital mortality in emergency ICU （EICU）. Methods： A retrospective analysis of the EICU including 463 patients was conducted between January 2013 and December 2015 in the EICU of Peking University Third Hospital. The worst physiological data of enrolled patients were collected within 24 h after admission to calculate SAPS 3 score and predicted mortality by regression equation. Discrimination between survivals and deaths was assessed by the area under the receiver operator characteristic curve （AUC）. Calibration was evaluated by Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of fit test through calculating the ratio of observed-to-expected numbers of deaths which is known as the standardized mortality ratio （SMR）. Results： A total of 463 patients were enrolled in the study, and the observed hospital mortality was 26.1% （121/463）. The patients enrolled were divided into survivors and nonsurvivors. Age, SAPS 3 score, Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation Score 11 （APACHE 11）, and predicted mortality were significantly higher in nonsurvivors than survivors （P 〈 0.05 or P 〈 0.01 ）. The AUC （95% confidence intervals [C/s]） for SAPS 3 score was 0.836 （0.796-0.876）. The maximum of Youden＇s index, cutoff, sensitivity, and specificity of SAPS 3 score were 0.526%, 70.5 points, 66.9%, and 85.7%, respectively. The Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test for SAPS 3 demonstrated a Chi-square test score of 10.25, P = 0.33, SMR （95% CI） = 0.63 （0.52 0.76）. The Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of fit test tbr SAPS 3 （AUS） demonstrated a Chi-square test score of 9.55, P 0.38, SMR （95% CI） 0.68 （0.57-0.81）. Univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted for biochemical variables that were probably correlated to prognosis. Eventually, blood urea nitrogen （BUN）, albumin,lactate and free triiodothyronine （FT3） were selected as independent risk factors for predicting prognosis. Conclusions： The SAPS 3 score system exhibited satisfactory performance even superior to APACHE 11 in discrimination. In predicting hospital mortality, SAPS 3 did not exhibit good calibration and overestimated hospital mortality, which demonstrated that SAPS 3 needs improvement in the future.