This literature review examines the impact of orthopaedic trauma on patient mental health. It focuses on patient outcomes, available resources, and healthcare provider knowledge and education. Orthopaedic trauma represents a significant physical and psychological burden for patients, often resulting in long-term disability, pain, and functional limitations. Understanding the impact of orthopaedic trauma on patient mental health is crucial for improving patient care, and optimizing recovery and rehabilitation outcomes. In this review, we synthesize the findings of empirical studies over the past decade to explore the current understanding of mental health outcomes in patients with orthopaedic trauma. Through this analysis, we identify gaps in existing research, as well as potential avenues for improving patient care and mental health support for patients with severe orthopaedic injuries. Our review reveals the pressing need for collaboration between healthcare providers, mental health professionals, and social support systems to ensure comprehensive mental care for patients with traumatic orthopaedic injuries.

Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria is a rare clonal hematopoietic stem cell disorder with debilitating health consequences if untreated. Although cases have been described globally, precise epidemiological distribution is difficult to assess due to geographical underrepresentation in disease reporting. Evaluation of the burden of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria in Bulgaria is currently missing. To provide epidemiological estimates, a systematic literature search for publications in the Bulgarian language or by Bulgarian authors was performed for a ten-year period (2013-2022), and clinically relevant information on case presentation was collected. Additionally, data was retrieved from the National Health Insurance Fund and National Statistical Institute on the count of registered cases with ICD-10 code \"D59.5\" and census for the same period. The estimated prevalence of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria is relatively lower in the Bulgarian population than in other countries, and it is estimated to be 2.77 cases per 1,000,000 patient years. The treatment pattern mainly shows conventional blood product support use and is consistent with the pre-complement inhibition era. Underdiagnosis, lack of a reliable disease reporting system, and, until recently, restricted access to complement inhibitor therapy are significant impediments to the management of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria in Bulgaria.

UNASSIGNED: Bronchiectasis carries a significant economic burden with high health care expenditures associated with frequent hospitalizations, physician visits, and treatments, including oral and intravenous antibiotics for repeated lung infections, airway-clearance therapy, and oxygen administration. Bronchiectasis exacerbations can contribute to this burden.
UNASSIGNED: To estimate US health care resource utilization (HCRU) and costs associated with bronchiectasis and with bronchiectasis exacerbations.
UNASSIGNED: This retrospective study used the 100% Medicare Fee-for-Service database (January 2014 to December 2020) to compare HCRU and costs among patients with bronchiectasis with those of patients without bronchiectasis (controls). For patients with bronchiectasis, the index date was a randomly selected bronchiectasis claim after more than 1 year of disease history and, for controls, a claim closest to their matched bronchiectasis patient\'s index date. All patients had continuous enrollment for at least 12 months pre-index (baseline) and at least 12 months post-index. Primary outcomes were all-cause, respiratory-related, and bronchiectasis-related HCRU and health care costs, which were presented by the overall sample and by segmented patient cohorts based on the number of exacerbations during baseline (0, 1, or ≥2).
UNASSIGNED: 92,529 patients with bronchiectasis (mean [SD] age, 76.7 [8.8] years; 72.3% female) and 92,529 matched controls qualified for the study. Compared with controls, patients with bronchiectasis presented greater mean (SD) all-cause physician visits (15.4 [10.0] vs 13.2 [9.7]; P < 0.001) and respiratory-related physician visits (5.2 [4.3] vs 1.9 [3.1]), pulmonologist visits (1.9 [2.2] vs 0.3 [1.0]), hospitalizations (0.4 [0.9] vs 0.3 [0.8]), emergency department visits (0.33 [1.0] vs 0.26 [1.0]), and total health care costs ($10,224 [$23,263] vs $6,704 [$19,593]). Respiratory-related HCRU was also greater in patients with more baseline exacerbations, with total health care costs of $8,506, $10,365, and $14,790 for patients with 0, 1, and at least 2 exacerbations, respectively (P < 0.01).
UNASSIGNED: This real-world study demonstrates the high disease burden associated with bronchiectasis and with exacerbations, highlighting the need to improve management and reduce exacerbations.

UNASSIGNED: Surgical site infection (SSI), albeit infrequent, drastically impacts the quality of care. This article endeavors to investigate the predictive factors of SSIs following surgical interventions that involve the gastrointestinal (GI) tract within a single institution in a resource-limited setting.
UNASSIGNED: Over seven years from June 2015 to June 2022, patients who underwent GI surgery and developed SSI were retrospectively matched with an unaffected case-control cohort of patients. Standardized techniques for wound culture, laboratory evaluation of bacterial isolates, and antibiotic susceptibility tests were employed. Logistic regression analysis was utilized to investigate the predictive factors associated with 30-day postoperative SSI occurrence.
UNASSIGNED: A total of 525 patients who underwent GI surgical procedures were included, among whom, 86 (16.4%) developed SSI and the majority of SSIs were superficial (74.4%). Escherichia coli was the most commonly isolated bacterium (54.4%), and a high percentage of multidrug-resistant organisms were observed (63.8%). In multivariate Cox regression analysis, illiteracy (Odds ratio [OR]:40.31; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 9.54-170.26), smoking (OR: 21.15; 95% CI: 4.63-96.67), diabetes (OR: 5.07; 95% CI: 2.27-11.35), leukocytosis (OR: 2.62; 95% CI: 1.24-5.53), hypoalbuminemia (OR: 3.70; 95% CI: 1.35-10.16), contaminated and dirty wounds (OR: 6.51; 95% CI:1.62-26.09), longer operation duration (OR: 1.02; 95% CI: 1.01-1.03), emergency operations (OR: 12.58; 95% CI: 2.91-54.30), and extending antibiotic prophylaxis duration (OR: 3.01; 95% CI: 1.28-7.10) were the independent risk factors for SSI (all p < 0.05).
UNASSIGNED: This study highlights significant predictors of SSI, including illiteracy, smoking, diabetes, leukocytosis, hypoalbuminemia, contaminated and dirty wounds, longer operative time, emergency operations, and extending antibiotic prophylaxis duration. Identifying these risk factors can help surgeons adopt appropriate measures to reduce postoperative SSI and improve the quality of surgical care, especially in a resource-limited setting with no obvious and strict policy for reducing SSI.

Recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (R/M HNSCC) is a challenging disease, requiring personalized management by a multidisciplinary team. The aim of this retrospective multicentric study was to characterize real-world healthcare resource use and patient care for R/M HNSCC in Portugal during the first year after diagnosis. A total of 377 patients ineligible for curative treatment were included, mostly male (92.8%), aged 50-69 years (74.5%), with heavy alcohol (72.7%) or smoking habits (89.3%). Oropharynx (33.2%) and oral cavity (28.7%) were primary tumor locations, with lung metastases being the most common (61.4%). Eligible patients for systemic treatment with palliative intent (80.6%) received up to four treatment lines, with varied regimens. Platinum-based combination chemotherapy dominated first-line treatment (>70%), while single-agent chemotherapy and anti-PD1 immunotherapy were prevalent in later lines. Treatment approaches were uniform across disease stages and primary tumor locations but varied geographically. Treated patients received more multidisciplinary support than those who were ineligible. This study provides the first Portuguese real-world description of R/M HNSCC patient characteristics, treatment patterns, and supportive care during the year after diagnosis, highlighting population heterogeneity and aiming to improve patient management.

Background: Despite the key role family caregivers play in the US healthcare system, they are not systematically identified and tracked, limiting our knowledge about this important group. Objective: Our objective was to identify caregiver characteristics and barriers to service delivery in a primarily rural state. Methods: As part of a quality improvement project, a cross-sectional online survey was fielded in clinical and community settings. Participants included 85 self-identified adult caregivers of another adult with an illness, condition, or disability from within a US state healthcare network. Descriptive analyses were conducted, and inferential statistics were used to compare urban versus rural respondents and older versus younger respondents. Results: Caregivers were responsible for a wide range of care activities and particularly older caregivers spent a significant amount of time providing care. Older caregivers also reported significantly lower levels of burden compared to younger caregivers, yet both groups had clinically high levels on average. Caregivers reported receiving helpful emotional support, but needed more tangible support and were limited by availability and cost. Conclusions: There is a need to fund comprehensive caregiver programing and address caregivers\' own social and physical health needs to reduce caregiver burden.

To predict the development of health resource allocation in Jilin Province during the 14th 5-Year Plan period, and to provide a scientific basis for promoting the improvement of its service capacity. The data of the health resource from 2015 to 2022 were obtained from the Jilin Statistical Yearbook, and the number of medical institutions, medical beds, health technicians, licensed (assistant) physicians, registered nurses and pharmacists were selected as evaluation indicators, and the grey prediction model constructed by Python was used to predict the development from 2023 to 2025. In the 14th 5-Year Plan period, the health resource in Jilin Province showed an increasing trend, and it is predicted that in 2025, the number of medical institutions, medical beds, health technicians, licensed (assistant) physicians, registered nurses, and pharmacists in Jilin Province will reach 28,999, 196,328, 262,219, 101,273, 129,586, and 9469, respectively. Except that the pharmacist team failed to meet the planning objectives of the 14th 5-Year Plan, the remaining health resources could meet the planning requirements. The allocation level of health resources in Jilin Province has been continuously improved, but it still faces the problems that the allocation of medical beds needs to be optimized, the doctor-nurse ratio needs to be improved, the reserve of registered nurses is insufficient, there is a gap in the pharmacist team, and the development of pharmacy services is slow.

BACKGROUND: Ensuring that the scale and hierarchical structure of health human resources are rational, and that medical services are efficient and fair, is an important task of practical significance. On this basis, examining the impact of health human resources on the level of medical services presents a new and formidable challenge. This study aims to delve into how the scale and hierarchical structure of health human resources in China\'s four major economic regions affect the fairness and efficiency of medical services, and to identify optimization strategies.
METHODS: This study utilizes provincial panel data from China\'s four major economic regions spanning the years 2009 to 2021. Initially, it provides a statistical description of the current state of health human resources and the level of medical services. Subsequently, it employs a fixed-effects model to analyze the impact of the scale and hierarchical structure of health human resources, as well as their interactive effects, on the fairness and efficiency of medical services, and discusses the interactive mechanisms between medical service fairness and medical service efficiency. Furthermore, after conducting a comprehensive evaluation of the level of medical services using the entropy weight method, it explores the regional heterogeneity and temporal dynamics in the influence of the scale and hierarchical structure of health human resources on the level of medical services. Finally, the study examines the scientific validity and rationality of the research findings through various robustness checks, including the substitution of research variables and models.
RESULTS: The study found that the scale of health human resources has a promoting effect on the equity of medical services (β ≤ 0.643, p ≤ 0.01), but exhibits an inhibitory effect on the efficiency of medical services (β ≥ -0.079, p ≤ 0.1); the hierarchical structure of health human resources shows a positive impact on both the equity and efficiency of medical services (βequity ≤ 0.160, p ≤ 0.01; βefficiency ≤ 0.341, p ≤ 0.05); at the same time, the results indicate that the interactive effect of the scale and hierarchical structure of health human resources promotes equity in medical services (β = 0.067, p ≤ 0.01), but restricts the efficiency of medical services (β ≥ -0.039, p ≤ 0.01); the mechanism by which health human resources affect the level of medical services in China\'s western and northeastern regions is more pronounced than in the central and eastern regions; after the implementation of the \"Healthy China 2030\" Planning Outline, the role of health human resources in the level of medical services has been strengthened; in the robustness tests, the model remains robust after replacing the core explanatory variables, with R2 maintained between 0.869 and 0.972, and the dynamic GMM model test shows a significant second-order lag in the level of medical services (βequity ≤ 0.149, p ≤ 0.01; βefficiency ≤ 0.461, p ≤ 0.01); the channel test results prove that managerial personnel and other technical personnel are key pathways in regulating the impact of medical staff on the level of medical services.
CONCLUSIONS: This study provides an in-depth analysis of the impact of health human resources on the level of medical services, revealing that both the scale and hierarchical structure of health human resources significantly affect the equity and efficiency of medical services. Furthermore, the influence of health human resources on the level of medical services exhibits regional heterogeneity and temporal characteristics. Robustness tests ensure the scientific validity and robustness of the research conclusions. This provides effective references for optimizing the allocation of health human resources and improving the level of medical services.

UNASSIGNED: Connecting individuals to existing community resources is critical to addressing social needs and improving population health. While there is much ongoing informatics work embedding social needs screening and referrals into health care systems and their electronic health records, there has been less focus on the digital ecosystem and needs of community-based organizations (CBOs) providing or connecting individuals to these resources.
UNASSIGNED: We used human-centered design to develop a digital platform for CBOs, focused on identification of health and social resources and communication with their clients.
UNASSIGNED: Centered in the Develop phase of the design process, we conducted in-depth interviews in 2 phases with community-based organizational leadership and staff to create and iterate on the platform. We elicited and mapped participant feedback to theory-informed domains from the Technology Acceptance Model, such as Usefulness and Ease of Use, to build the final product and summarized all major design decisions as the platform development proceeded.
UNASSIGNED: Overall, we completed 22 interviews with 18 community-based organizational leadership and staff in 2 consecutive Develop phases. After coding of the interview transcripts, there were 4 major themes related to usability, relevance, and external factors impacting use. Specifically, CBOs expressed an interest in a customer relationship management software to manage their client interactions and communications, and they needed specific additional features to address the scope of their everyday work, namely (1) digital and SMS text messaging communication with clients and (2) easy ways to identify relevant community resources based on diverse client needs and various program eligibility criteria. Finally, clear implementation needs emerged, such as digital training and support for staff using new platforms. The final platform, titled \"Mapping to Enhance the Vitality of Engaged Neighborhoods (MAVEN),\" was completed in the Salesforce environment in 2022, and it included features and functions directly mapped to the design process.
UNASSIGNED: Engaging community organizations in user-centered design of a health and social resource platform was essential to tapping into their deep expertise in serving local communities and neighborhoods. Design methods informed by behavioral theory can be similarly employed in other informatics research. Moving forward, much more work will be necessary to support the implementation of platforms specific to CBOs\' needs, especially given the resources, training, and customization needed in these settings.

Hyperkalaemia is associated with prolonged hospital admission and worse mortality. Hyperkalaemia may also necessitate clinical consults, therapies for hyperkalaemia and high-dependency bed utilisation. We evaluated the \'hidden\' human and organisational resource utilisation for hyperkalaemia in hospitalised patients. This was a single-centre, observational cohort study (Jan 2017-Dec 2020) at a tertiary-care hospital. The CogStack system (data processing and analytics platform) was used to search unstructured and structured data from individual patient records. Association between potassium and death was modelled using cubic spline regression, adjusted for age, sex, and comorbidities. Cox proportional hazards estimated the hazard of death compared with normokalaemia (3.5-5.0 mmol/l). 129,172 patients had potassium measurements in the emergency department. Incidence of hyperkalaemia was 85.7 per 1000. There were 49,011 emergency admissions. Potassium > 6.5 mmol/L had 3.9-fold worse in-hospital mortality than normokalaemia. Chronic kidney disease was present in 21% with potassium 5-5.5 mmol/L and 54% with potassium > 6.5 mmol/L. For diabetes, it was 20% and 32%, respectively. Of those with potassium > 6.5 mmol/L, 29% had nephrology review, and 13% critical care review; in this group 22% transferred to renal wards and 8% to the critical care unit. Dialysis was used in 39% of those with peak potassium > 6.5 mmol/L. Admission hyperkalaemia and hypokalaemia were independently associated with reduced likelihood of hospital discharge. Hyperkalaemia is associated with greater in-hospital mortality and reduced likelihood of hospital discharge. It necessitated significant utilisation of nephrology and critical care consultations and greater likelihood of patient transfer to renal and critical care.