Kaiksow, Farah Acher

Objective Hospitalization, particularly for surgery, represents a period of heightened stress. We evaluated how frailty attenuates the association of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) with negative health outcomes after elective noncardiac surgery. Methods We conducted a cross‐sectional study using the National Inpatient Sample (2018 to 2020), including adults (aged ≥18 years) with elective hospitalizations with noncardiac surgery. Frailty was measured using the Hospital Frailty Risk Score (HFRS). Surgeries were categorized by risk level. Outcomes included discharge health resources need (DHRN), composite adverse clinical events (CACE), and death. Results Among 8,800,359 hospitalizations (2.14% among patients with RA), 73.36% underwent intermediate‐risk surgery and 62.25% had HFRS above 0. DHRN occurred in 28.9%, CACE occurred in 0.93%, and all‐cause mortality occurred in 0.17%. A 10‐point increase in HFRS was associated with a 3.8‐fold increased DHRN, 8.5‐fold increased CACE, and 22.8‐fold increased mortality. RA was not independently associated with CACE (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 0.91; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.82–1.01; P = 0.08) or death (aOR 0.90; 95% CI 0.71–1.15; P = 0.41) but was significantly associated with DHRN (aOR 1.28, 95% CI 1.25–1.31; P < 0.001) after adjusting for confounders and frailty. In sensitivity analysis, RA had 10% higher relative odds of DHRN following orthopedic (aOR 1.10; 95% CI 1.07–1.13; P < 0.001) but not nonorthopedic intermediate‐risk surgery (aOR 1.10; 95% CI 0.98–1.23; P = 0.11). Conclusion RA was associated with higher odds of DHRN after orthopedic intermediate‐risk surgery but not CACE or inpatient mortality. Moreover, HFRS was associated with DHRN, CACE, and death. These findings underscore the need for disease‐specific clinical considerations and highlight the potential utility of HFRS in discharge planning.

Abstract Rationale The United States has the highest per capita incarceration rate of any developed democracy. As the incarcerated population ages, medically complex and frail patients are increasingly hospitalized in the community, often arriving without decisional capacity and with limited family involvement. This is the first analysis of state laws and policies governing decision-making for incapacitated incarcerated patients. Methods Two team members independently conducted Westlaw and Internet searches for statutes, regulations and department of corrections (DOC) policies from 50 states and the District of Columbia, identifying language about medical decision-making for incapacitated incarcerated patients. These parallel searches were merged into a single database and reviewed by the analytic team, who created a codebook of inductively and deductively derived themes, guided by principles of grounded theory. The codebook was then systematically applied to the database by 2 independent coders; all data were double-coded. Disputes were resolved by consensus with the entire analytic team, in consultation with a legal scholar. Results Thirty-four of 51 jurisdictions have language addressing decision-making for incapacitated incarcerated patients. Data collected include the definition and determination of incapacity, language affirming incarcerated persons’ right to autonomy in medical decision-making, approaches to decision-making for patients with and without surrogate decision-makers, and whether treatment over patient/surrogate objection is authorized. Assertions about the importance of advance care planning (n = 25) are often undercut by procedural hurdles (n = 20), such as complex witnessing requirements for advance directive completion. Many jurisdictions (n = 26) allow family or friends to serve as legally recognized decision-makers. Thirteen jurisdictions exclude an incarcerated person from serving as decision-maker for another incarcerated person. Fourteen jurisdictions have provisions allowing for treatment over the objection of a patient or their surrogate. While approaches to unrepresented patients differ widely (Figure), 5 jurisdictions grant narrow decisional authority to treating physicians and 4 jurisdictions authorize correctional employees to make medical decisions. Conclusion A heterogeneous assortment of laws, policies and regulations govern the care of incapacitated incarcerated patients, with wide variation observed from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. One-third of jurisdictions lack policies or language regarding decision-making processes for incapacitated incarcerated patients. Even more troubling, 14 jurisdictions allow treatment over a patient or surrogate’s objection and 4 jurisdictions delegate authority over decisions for unrepresented patients to correctional employees, such as the prison medical director or the warden. These findings raise serious concerns about autonomy, beneficence and justice. National reform is needed to align correctional policies with established ethical standards for surrogate decision-making. This abstract is funded by: National Institute on Aging

AbstractBackgroundHospital medicine (HM) has a well‐described gender disparity related to academic work and promotion. During the COVID‐19 pandemic, female authorship across medicine fell further behind historical averages.ObjectiveExamine how COVID‐19 affected the publication gender gap for hospitalists.Design, Settings, and ParticipantsBibliometric analysis to determine gender and specialty of US‐based physician first and last authors of COVID‐19 articles published March 1, 2020 to February 28, 2021 in the four highest impact general medical journals and two highest impact HM‐specific journals.Main Outcome and MeasuresWe characterized the percentage of all physician authors that were women, the percentage of physician authors that were hospitalists, and the percentage of HM authors that were women. We compared author gender between general medical and HM‐specific journals.ResultsDuring the study period, 853 manuscripts with US‐based first or last authors were published in eligible journals. Included manuscripts contained 1124 US‐based physician first or last author credits, of which 34.2% (384) were women and 8.8% (99) were hospitalists. Among hospitalist author credits, 43.4% (n = 43/99) were occupied by women. The relative gender equity for hospitalist authors was driven by the two HM journals where, compared to the four general medical journals, hospitalist authors (54.1% [33/61] vs. 26.3% [10/38] women, respectively, p = .002) and hospitalist last authors (51.9% [14/27] vs. 20% [4/20], p = .03) were more likely to be women.ConclusionsAcross COVID‐19‐related manuscripts, disparities by gender were driven by the high‐impact general medical journals. HM‐specific journals had more equitable inclusion of women authors, demonstrating the potential impact of proactive editorial policies on diversity.