Biomedical subjects

George J Stukenborg

Publications and source records attributed to George J Stukenborg.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Present-at-admission diagnoses improved mortality risk adjustment among acute myocardial infarction patients.

OBJECTIVE: Hospital mortality outcomes for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) patients are a focus of quality improvement programs conducted by government agencies. AMI mortality risk-adjustment models using administrative data typically adjust for baseline differences in mortality risk with a limited set of common and definite comorbidities. In this study, we present an AMI mortality risk-adjustment model that adjusts for comorbid disease and for AMI severity using information from secondary diagnoses reported as present at admission for California hospital patients. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: AMI patients were selected from California hospital administrative data for 1996 through 1999 according to criteria used by the California Hospital Outcomes Project Report on Heart Attack Outcomes, a state-mandated public report that compares hospital mortality outcomes. We compared results for the new model to two mortality risk-adjustment models used to assess hospital AMI mortality outcomes by the state of California, and to two other models used in prior research. RESULTS: The model using present-at-admission diagnoses obtained substantially better discrimination between predicted survival and inpatient death than the other models we considered. CONCLUSION: AMI mortality risk-adjustment methods can be meaningfully improved using present-at-admission diagnoses to identify comorbid disease and conditions related closely to AMI.

California↗

PubMed2006

Cancer incidence after localized therapy for prostate cancer.

BACKGROUND: Second cancers may occur in patients who have undergone radiation therapy. The risk for these adverse events after therapy is uncertain. In this study, the authors examined the size and significance of the observed association between occurrences of secondary cancers 5 years after radiotherapy in a large population of men with incident prostate cancer. METHODS: Men with incident prostate cancer were identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registry and were distinguished by the type of treatment received, tumor stage, tumor grade, and age at diagnosis. SEER data also were used to identify occurrences of secondary cancer beginning 5 years after the date patients were diagnosed with prostate cancer. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the adjusted odds of the subsequent occurrence of other cancers associated with types of radiation therapy received and was adjusted for the type of surgery, tumor grade, stage, and patient age. RESULTS: Compared with men who received no prostate cancer-directed radiation, men who received external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) as their only form of radiation therapy had statistically significant increased odds of developing secondary cancers at several sites potentially related to radiation therapy, including the bladder (odds ratio [OR], 1.63; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 1.44-1.84) and rectum (OR, 1.60; 95% CI, 1.29-1.99). Men who received EBRT also had statistically significant higher odds of developing secondary cancers at sites in the upper body and other areas not potentially related to radiation therapy, including the cecum (OR, 1.63; 95% CI, 1.10-1.70), transverse colon (OR, 1.85; 95% CI, 1.30-2.63), brain (OR, 1.83; 95% CI, 1.22-2.75), stomach (OR, 1.38; 95% CI, 1.09-1.75), melanoma (OR, 1.29; 95% CI, 1.09-1.53), and lung and bronchus (OR, 1.25; 95% CI, 1.13-1.37) compared with the odds among men who received no radiation therapy. Men who received radiation therapy in the form of radioactive implants or isotopes, either in isolation or combined with beam radiation, did not have significantly different odds of secondary cancer occurring at any of the 20 most common sites. CONCLUSIONS: Patients who received with EBRT had significantly higher odds of developing second cancers both overall and in the areas that were exposed to radiation. It is noteworthy that, to the authors' knowledge, this report shows for the first time that, despite the higher doses of radiation delivered, patients who received radioactive implants had the lowest odds of developing second cancers.

Brachytherapy↗

PubMed2006

The association between hospital characteristics and rates of preventable complications and adverse events.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: This study examined the statistical relationship between hospital ownership and teaching status and hospital rates for potentially preventable adverse events measured using patient safety indicators recently developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. RESEARCH DESIGN/MEASURES: A nationally representative sample of hospitals grouped into mutually exclusive combinations of control/ownership, teaching status, and rurality was defined using the Nationwide Inpatient Sample data set for the year 2000. Hospital rates for 5 categories of preventable adverse events were measured in 3 forms: unadjusted, risk-adjusted, and risk-adjusted ratios with smoothing. Multivariable regression analysis was used to measure the statistical significance of the relationship between hospital type and rates for potentially preventable adverse events, with adjustments for differences in hospital bed size and region. RESULTS: This analysis found an inconsistent relationship between categories of hospital type and quality care measured by alternative indicators of potentially preventable conditions. CONCLUSIONS: Hospital ownership and teaching status is not a consistent predictor of differences in rates of potentially preventable adverse events, and these characteristics explain little of the observed variation in the rates of these events across hospitals.

Hospitals↗

PubMed2005

Present-at-admission diagnoses improve mortality risk adjustment and allow more accurate assessment of the relationship between volume of lung cancer operations and mortality risk.

BACKGROUND: Mortality risk adjustment is a key component of studies that examine the statistical relationship between hospital lung cancer operation volume and in-hospital mortality. Previous studies of this relationship have used different methods of adjusting for factors that influence mortality risk, but none have adjusted for differences in comorbid disease using only diagnoses identified as present-at-admission. METHODS: This study uses adjustments for conditions identified as present-at-admission to examine the statistical relationship between the volume of lung cancer operations and mortality among 14,456 California hospital patients, and compares these results to other methods of risk adjustment similar to those used in previous studies. RESULTS: Mortality risk adjustment using present-at-admission diagnoses yielded better discrimination and explained more of the variability in observed deaths. Large increases in hospital procedure volume were associated with much smaller decreases in mortality risk than those estimated using comparable risk-adjustment models. CONCLUSIONS: Present-at-admission diagnoses can be used to improve mortality risk adjustment and may allow a more accurate assessment of the relationship between procedure volume and mortality risk.

Comorbidity↗

PubMed2004

Hospital discharge abstract data on comorbidity improved the prediction of death among patients hospitalized with aspiration pneumonia.

OBJECTIVE: To use diagnoses reported as present at admission in California hospital discharge abstract data to identify categories of comorbid disease and conditions related to aspiration pneumonia and to assess their association with hospital mortality. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: The study population included all persons hospitalized in California from 1996 through 1999, with a principal diagnosis of aspiration pneumonia. Present at admission diagnoses representing comorbid diseases were separated from conditions closely related to aspiration pneumonia by a physician panel through a computer supported Delphi process. Multivariable logistic regression was used to assess the probability of hospital death after adjusting for these patient characteristics. The statistical performance of this method was compared to the performance of two independent methods for measuring comorbid disease. The practical significance of differences in statistical performance was assessed by comparing the estimated effects of age, race, and ethnicity after adjustments using each method. RESULTS: Mortality risk adjustment using present at admission diagnoses resulted in substantially better statistical performance and in different measurements of the adjusted effects of age, race, and ethnicity. CONCLUSION: Reporting present at admission diagnoses in hospital discharge data yields meaningful improvements in hospital mortality risk adjustment.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

Comorbid disease and the effect of race and ethnicity on in-hospital mortality from aspiration pneumonia.

BACKGROUND: Racial and ethnic disparities in mortality have been demonstrated in several diseases. African Americans are hospitalized at a significantly higher rate than whites for aspiration pneumonia; however, no studies have investigated racial and ethnic disparities in mortality in this population. OBJECTIVE: To assess the independent effect of race and ethnicity on in-hospital mortality among aspiration pneumonia discharges while comprehensively controlling for comorbid diseases, and to assess whether the prevalence and effects of comorbid illness differed across racial and ethnic categories. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Retrospective cohort study of 41,581 patients admitted to California hospitals for aspiration pneumonia from 1996 through 1998, using principal and secondary diagnoses present on admission. MEASUREMENT: The primary outcome measure was in-hospital mortality. RESULTS: The adjusted odds of in-hospital death for African-American compared with white discharges [odds ratio (OR)=1.01; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.91-1.11] was not significantly different. The odds of death for Asian compared with white discharges was significantly lower (OR=0.83; 95% CI, 0.75-0.91). Hispanics had a significantly lower odds of death (OR=0.90; 95% CI, 0.82-0.988) compared to non-Hispanics. Comorbid diseases were more prevalent among African Americans and Asians than whites, and among Hispanics compared to non-Hispanics. Differences in effects of comorbid disease on mortality risk by race and ethnicity were not statistically significant. CONCLUSION: Asians have a lower risk of death, and the risk of death for African Americans is not significantly different from whites in this analysis of aspiration pneumonia discharges. Hispanics have a lower risk of death than non-Hispanics. While there are differences in prevalence of comorbid disease by racial and ethnic category, the effects of comorbid disease on mortality risk do not differ meaningfully by race or ethnicity.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Improving quality measurement using multiple data sources.

We calculated a sample of AHRQ Quality and Patient Safety Indicators for UVa hospitalized patients over a 3 year period using diagnoses and procedure codes from two different billing systems. Significant differences in results were observed suggesting that quality indicators calculated from hospital billing sources alone may be understated.

Current Procedural Terminology↗