We conducted a population-based study using Ontario health administrative data to describe trends in healthcare utilization and mortality in adults with epilepsy during the first pandemic year (March 2020–March 2021) compared to historical data (2016–2019). We also investigated if changes in outpatient visits and diagnostic testing during the first pandemic year were associated with increased risk for hospitalizations, emergency department (ED) visits, or death.

Projected monthly visit rates (per 100,000 people) for outpatient visits, electroencephalography, magnetic resonance, computed tomography, all-cause ED visits, hospitalizations, and mortality were calculated based on historical data by fitting monthly time series autoregressive integrated moving-average models. Two-way interactions were calculated using Quasi-Poisson models.

In adults with epilepsy during the first quarter of the pandemic, we demonstrated a reduction in all-cause outpatient visits, diagnostic testing, ED visits and hospitalizations, and a temporary increase in mortality (observed rates of 355.8 vs projected 308.8, 95% CI: 276.3–345.1). By the end of the year, outpatient visits increased (85,535.4 vs 76,620.6, 95% CI: 71,546.9–82,059.4), and most of the diagnostic test rates returned to the projected. The increase in the rate of all-cause mortality during the pandemic, compared to pre-pandemic, was greater during months with the lower frequency of diagnostic tests than months with higher frequency (interaction p-values <.0001).

We described the impact of the pandemic on healthcare utilization and mortality in adults with epilepsy during the first year. We demonstrated that access to relevant diagnostic testing is likely important for this population while planning restrictions on non-urgent health services.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) offers opportunity against a historical background of underfunded and fragmented services for people with disability. For people with acquired brain injury (ABI), concerns have been raised about how they access NDIS individualised funded supports. The aim of this research was to explore how community-dwelling individuals with ABI in Queensland navigate the NDIS participant pathway to individualised funded supports.

This study used a multiple case study design within a policy implementation framework. Twelve people with ABI, nine family members and eight NDIS funded and mainstream service providers participated. Data was collected from relevant NDIS documentation, health records and semi-structured interviews with individuals with ABI, family members, and service providers.

The current study highlighted the complexity of navigating the NDIS participant pathway of access, planning, implementation and review for people with ABI, their family and service providers. The NDIS pathway was impacted by the insurance and market based NDIS model itself, time, communication, and the requirement for external supports. Equally, the process was affected by environmental factors, individual person and injury factors as well as service providers, with a range of outcomes evident at the individual, family and system level.

Findings suggest that the NDIS has struggled to make specific allowance for people with ABI and the complexity of their disabilities. Providing people with ABI access to the NDIS Complex Support Needs Pathway may redress many of the difficulties people with ABI experience accessing and using NDIS funded supports.

Deficits in visuospatial attention, known as neglect, are common following brain injury, but underdiagnosed and poorly treated, resulting in long-term cognitive disability. In clinical settings, neglect is often assessed using simple pen-and-paper tests. While convenient, these cannot characterise the full spectrum of neglect. This protocol reports a research programme that compares traditional neglect assessments with a novel virtual reality attention assessment platform: The Attention Atlas (AA).

The AA was codesigned by researchers and clinicians to meet the clinical need for improved neglect assessment. The AA uses a visual search paradigm to map the attended space in three dimensions and seeks to identify the optimal parameters that best distinguish neglect from non-neglect, and the spectrum of neglect, by providing near-time feedback to clinicians on system-level behavioural performance. A series of experiments will address procedural, scientific, patient, and clinical feasibility domains.

Analyses focuses on descriptive measures of reaction time, accuracy data for target localisation, and histogram-based raycast attentional mapping analysis; which measures the individual’s orientation in space, and inter- and intra-individual variation of visuospatial attention. We will compare neglect and control data using parametric between-subjects analyses. We present example individual-level results produced in near-time during visual search.

The development and validation of the AA is part of a new generation of translational neuroscience that exploits the latest advances in technology and brain science, including technology repurposed from the consumer gaming market. This approach to rehabilitation has the potential for highly accurate, highly engaging, personalised care.

Individuals with schizophrenia are at higher risk of physical illnesses, which are a major contributor to their 20-year reduced life expectancy. It is currently unknown what causes the increased risk of physical illness in schizophrenia.

To link genetic data from a clinically ascertained sample of individuals with schizophrenia to anonymised National Health Service (NHS) records. To assess (a) rates of physical illness in those with schizophrenia, and (b) whether physical illness in schizophrenia is associated with genetic liability.

We linked genetic data from a clinically ascertained sample of individuals with schizophrenia (Cardiff Cognition in Schizophrenia participants, n = 896) to anonymised NHS records held in the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) databank. Physical illnesses were defined from the General Practice Database and Patient Episode Database for Wales. Genetic liability for schizophrenia was indexed by (a) rare copy number variants (CNVs), and (b) polygenic risk scores.

Individuals with schizophrenia in SAIL had increased rates of epilepsy (standardised rate ratio (SRR) = 5.34), intellectual disability (SRR = 3.11), type 2 diabetes (SRR = 2.45), congenital disorders (SRR = 1.77), ischaemic heart disease (SRR = 1.57) and smoking (SRR = 1.44) in comparison with the general SAIL population. In those with schizophrenia, carrier status for schizophrenia-associated CNVs and neurodevelopmental disorder-associated CNVs was associated with height (P = 0.015–0.017), with carriers being 7.5–7.7 cm shorter than non-carriers. We did not find evidence that the increased rates of poor physical health outcomes in schizophrenia were associated with genetic liability for the disorder.

This study demonstrates the value of and potential for linking genetic data from clinically ascertained research studies to anonymised health records. The increased risk for physical illness in schizophrenia is not caused by genetic liability for the disorder.

Rare copy number variants (CNVs) are associated with risk of neurodevelopmental disorders characterised by varying degrees of cognitive impairment, including schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability. However, the effects of many individual CNVs in carriers without neurodevelopmental disorders are not yet fully understood, and little is known about the effects of reciprocal copy number changes of known pathogenic loci.

We aimed to analyse the effect of CNV carrier status on cognitive performance and measures of occupational and social outcomes in unaffected individuals from the UK Biobank.

We called CNVs in the full UK Biobank sample and analysed data from 420 247 individuals who passed CNV quality control, reported White British or Irish ancestry and were not diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders. We analysed 33 pathogenic CNVs, including their reciprocal deletions/duplications, for association with seven cognitive tests and four general measures of functioning: academic qualifications, occupation, household income and Townsend Deprivation Index.

Most CNVs (24 out of 33) were associated with reduced performance on at least one cognitive test or measure of functioning. The changes on the cognitive tests were modest (average reduction of 0.13 s.d.) but varied markedly between CNVs. All 12 schizophrenia-associated CNVs were associated with significant impairments on measures of functioning.

CNVs implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders, including schizophrenia, are associated with cognitive deficits, even among unaffected individuals. These deficits may be subtle but CNV carriers have significant disadvantages in educational attainment and ability to earn income in adult life.

None.

To describe the process by which the 12 community-based primary health care (CBPHC) research teams worked together and fostered cross-jurisdictional collaboration, including collection of common indicators with the goal of using the same measures and data sources.

A pan-Canadian mechanism for common measurement of the impact of primary care innovations across Canada is lacking. The Canadian Institutes for Health Research and its partners funded 12 teams to conduct research and collaborate on development of a set of commonly collected indicators.

A working group representing the 12 teams was established. They undertook an iterative process to consider existing primary care indicators identified from the literature and by stakeholders. Indicators were agreed upon with the intention of addressing three objectives across the 12 teams: (1) describing the impact of improving access to CBPHC; (2) examining the impact of alternative models of chronic disease prevention and management in CBPHC; and (3) describing the structures and context that influence the implementation, delivery, cost, and potential for scale-up of CBPHC innovations.

Nineteen common indicators within the core dimensions of primary care were identified: access, comprehensiveness, coordination, effectiveness, and equity. We also agreed to collect data on health care costs and utilization within each team. Data sources include surveys, health administrative data, interviews, focus groups, and case studies. Collaboration across these teams sets the foundation for a unique opportunity for new knowledge generation, over and above any knowledge developed by any one team. Keys to success are each team’s willingness to engage and commitment to working across teams, funding to support this collaboration, and distributed leadership across the working group. Reaching consensus on collection of common indicators is challenging but achievable.

There is strong evidence that people born in winter and in spring have a small increased risk of schizophrenia. As this ‘season of birth’ effect underpins some of the most influential hypotheses concerning potentially modifiable risk exposures, it is important to exclude other possible explanations for the phenomenon.

Here we sought to determine whether the season of birth effect reflects gene-environment confounding rather than a pathogenic process indexing environmental exposure. We directly measured, in 136 538 participants from the UK Biobank (UKBB), the burdens of common schizophrenia risk alleles and of copy number variants known to increase the risk for the disorder, and tested whether these were correlated with a season of birth.

Neither genetic measure was associated with season or month of birth within the UKBB sample.

As our study was highly powered to detect small effects, we conclude that the season of birth effect in schizophrenia reflects a true pathogenic effect of environmental exposure.

The administration of blood products to critically ill patients can be life-saving, but is not without risk. During helicopter transport, confined work space, communication challenges, distractions of multi-tasking, and patient clinical challenges increase the potential for error. This paper describes the in-flight red blood cell transfusion practice of a rural aeromedical transport service (AMTS) with respect to whether (1) transfusion following an established protocol can be safely and effectively performed, and (2) patients who receive transfusions demonstrate evidence of improvement in condition.

A two-year retrospective review of the in-flight transfusion experience of a single-system AMTS servicing a rural state was conducted. Data elements recorded contemporaneously for each transfusion were analyzed, and included hematocrit and hemodynamic status before and after transfusion. Compliance with an established transfusion protocol was determined through structured review by a multidisciplinary quality review committee.

During the study, 2,566 missions were flown with 45 subjects (1.7%) receiving in-flight transfusion. Seventeen (38%) of these transports were scene-to-facility and 28 (62%) were inter-facility. Mean bedside and in-flight times were 22 minutes (range 3-109 minutes) and 24 minutes (range 8-76 minutes), respectively. The most common conditions requiring transfusion were trauma (71%), cardiovascular (13%) and gastrointestinal (11%). An average of 2.4 liters (L) of crystalloid was administered pre-transfusion. The mean transfusion was 1.4 units of packed red blood cells. The percentages of subjects with pre- and post-transfusion systolic blood pressures of <90 mmHg were 71% and 29%, respectively. The pre- and post-transfusion mean arterial pressures were 62 mmHg and 82 mmHg, respectively. The pre- and post- transfusion mean hematocrit levels were 17.8% and 30.4%, respectively. At the receiving institution, 9% of subjects died in the Emergency Department, 18% received additional transfusion within 30 minutes of arrival, 36% went directly to the operating room, and 36% were directly admitted to intensive care. Thirty-one percent of subjects died prior to hospital discharge. There were no protocol violations or reported high-risk provider blood exposure incidents or transfusion complications. All transfusions were categorized as appropriate.

In this rural AMTS, transfusion was an infrequent, likely life-saving, and potentially high-risk emergent therapy. Strict compliance with an established transfusion protocol resulted in appropriate and effective decisions, and transfusion proved to be a safe in-flight procedure for both patients and providers.

Higgins GL 3rd, Baumann MR, Kendall KM, Watts MA, Strout TD. Red blood cell transfusion: experience in a rural aeromedical transport service. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2012;27(3):1-4.

As ultrasonography is increasingly used in the emergency department (ED), ultrasound equipment has become a potential threat to infection control. Improperly cleaned ultrasound probes may serve as a vector for pathogens such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The primary objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of MRSA colonization on ultrasound probes used in a busy, urban ED. It was hypothesized that cultures of our ED ultrasound probes would yield a significant number of positive results for MRSA.

In this observational study, 11 ED ultrasound probes were randomly sampled on 10 different occasions. Samples were taken using a RODAC plate method and were cultured for MRSA and methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA). On half of the randomly assigned sampling occasions, a visual inspection of each ultrasound probe for general cleanliness was conducted and recorded. Data were stratified by ultrasound location in the ED and analyzed using the Fisher exact test, with p < 0.05 deemed to be statistically significant.

Of 110 samples, no isolates of MRSA were cultured. One probe yielded a positive culture for MSSA. Probes in the medicine, trauma, and pediatrics areas were found to be clean 65%, 33%, and 70% of the time, respectively. This variability in probe cleanliness by ED location was found to be statistically significant (p < 0.01).

Contrary to our hypothesis, MRSA contamination of ultrasound probes was not found. This finding suggests that the spread of MRSA by ED ultrasound machines in a high-volume urban ED is unlikely. Further research at different centres with larger sample sizes is required before these results can be generalized.