Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

39 QUALITY IMPROVEMENT & MEASUREMENT 5 insights from a hospital that's treated 3,500+ COVID-19 patients By Mackenzie Bean T hree emergency physicians from Stony Brook (N.Y.) University Hospital outlined their experience on the front lines of the pandemic in an April 13 entry for The New England Journal of Medicine's COVID-19 Notes series. Adam Singer, MD, Eric Morley, MD, and Mark Henry, MD, are attending physicians in the department of emergency medicine at Stony Brook University's Renaissance School of Medicine. Stony Brook University Hospital has treated more than 3,500 suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients between Feb. 7 and April 13, the physicians said. The hospital created an internal registry to track COVID-19 data and help predict how many individuals would require intensive care or ventilation. Five clinical insights to know from Stony Brook's COVID-19 registry: 1. The most common symptoms physicians witnessed in COVID-19 patients were cough, fever, shortness of breath, muscle aches, fatigue and diarrhea. 2. About 50 percent of patients reported contact with sick individuals. 3. Of more than 2,000 chest X-rays, about half revealed lung opacities. 4. About 70 percent of patients seen in the emergency department were sent home. 5. Of the 30 percent who were admitted, about 10 percent required immediate in- tensive care or ventilation, and another 15 percent needed this care within two days. n National taskforce recommends hepatitis C screening for all adults By Anuja Vaidya A national volunteer taskforce comprising experts in infection prevention and evidence-based medicine, is recommending healthcare professionals screen all adults for hepatitis C. The recommendation is an update of the task force's 2013 hepatitis C recommendation for adolescents and adults, which urged hepa- titis C screening for those at high risk for infection and a one-time screening for adults born between 1945 and 1965. The updated recommendation expands the ages for screening to all adults, from 18 to 79 years. It also recommends screening only once for most adults. Only those who show evidence of a continued risk for hepatitis infection should be screened periodically. Pregnant adults should also be screened. Hepatitis C is a viral infection of the liver and is primarily spread when blood from an infected person enters the body of someone without the infection. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, convened by the HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, makes evidence-based recommendations about preventive services, such as screenings, counseling services and preventive medications. It also makes a report to Congress that identifies evidence gaps in research and recommends priority areas. The taskforce published its recommendation statement and corre- sponding supporting evidence in JAMA. n COVID-19 nearly triples death risk of cancer patients, study finds By Anuja Vaidya C ancer patients who contract COVID-19 are nearly three times more likely to die than COVID-19 patients who do not have can- cer, according to a study published in Cancer Discovery. Researchers studied 105 COVID-19 patients with cancer at 14 hospi- tals in Wuhan, China, from Jan. 1 to Feb. 24. They randomly selected COVID-19 patients at the same hospitals as a control group. Compared to cancer-free COVID-19 patients, patients with cancer were 2.34 times more likely to die and 2.84 times more likely to be ad- mitted to the intensive care unit. COVID-19 patients with cancer were also more likely to have at least one severe symptom or need invasive mechanical ventilation. "In general, patients with cancer deteriorated more rapidly than those without cancer," researchers wrote. The study was released at the American Association for Cancer Research's virtual annual meeting April 27-28, according to The Washington Post. n

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