Lorraine C. Mion

Background: The ABCDE bundle is a multifaceted, interprofessional intervention that is associated with reduced ventilator and delirium days as well as increased likelihood of mobility in intensive care. Objectives: The aim of this study is to describe organizational domains that contribute to variation in ABCDE bundle implementation as reported by intensive care unit providers and to examine the capability of a conceptual framework for identifying variation in ABCDE bundle implementation. Methods: We conducted 2 separate focus groups that included nurses, respiratory therapists, occupational and physical therapists (N = 16) from the surgical and medical intensive care units at 1 academic medical center. All participants had experience performing ABCDE bundle activities. Results: Variation in how the ABCDE bundle was interpreted and executed within and across disciplines was noted. Organizational facets, the physical environment, labor quantity and quality, task burden, provider attitudes, and patient characteristics were noted to influence ABCDE bundle execution. The difficulty coordinating and implementing early mobility was emphasized. Discussion: The number of disciplines required to perform an activity and individual component complexity was reported to influence ABCDE bundle implementation. Nurses repeatedly described challenges with coordinating care across disciplines. Small tests of change, adequate staffing, interprofessional training and protocol development efforts, and role modeling may be effective methods for successful ABCDE bundle implementation.

The aging population with its concomitant medical conditions, physical and cognitive impairments, at a time of strained resources, establishes the urgent need to explore advanced technologies that may enhance function and quality of life. Recently, robotic technology, especially socially assistive robotics has been investigated to address the physical, cognitive, and social needs of older adults. Most system to date have predominantly focused on one-on-one human robot interaction (HRI). In this paper, we present a multi-user engagement-based robotic coach system architecture (ROCARE). ROCARE is capable of administering both one-on-one and multi-user HRI, providing implicit and explicit channels of communication, and individualized activity management for long-term engagement. Two preliminary feasibility studies, a one-on-one interaction and a triadic interaction with two humans and a robot, were conducted and the results indicated potential usefulness and acceptance by older adults, with and without cognitive impairment.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a prevalent and costly neurodevelopmental disorder. Individuals with ASD often have deficits in social communication skills as well as adaptive behavior skills related to daily activities. We have recently designed a novel virtual reality (VR) based driving simulator for driving skill training for individuals with ASD. In this paper, we explored the feasibility of detecting engagement level, emotional states, and mental workload during VR-based driving using EEG as a first step towards a potential EEG-based Brain Computer Interface (BCI) for assisting autism intervention. We used spectral features of EEG signals from a 14-channel EEG neuroheadset, together with therapist ratings of behavioral engagement, enjoyment, frustration, boredom, and difficulty to train a group of classification models. Seven classification methods were applied and compared including Bayes network, naïve Bayes, Support Vector Machine (SVM), multilayer perceptron, K-nearest neighbors (KNN), random forest, and J48. The classification results were promising, with over 80% accuracy in classifying engagement and mental workload, and over 75% accuracy in classifying emotional states. Such results may lead to an adaptive closed-loop VR-based skill training system for use in autism intervention.

OBJECTIVES: To model clinical and situational variables that may affect likelihood of physicians to order physical restraints. DESIGN: Cross‐sectional, factorial survey. SETTING: One academic medical center. PARTICIPANTS: One hundred eighty‐nine physicians: interns in all specialty practices and resident and attending physicians in departments of surgery, general internal medicine, family practice, emergency medicine, and psychiatry. MEASUREMENTS: Vignettes were randomly generated using different values of six situational and eight clinical variables. Each physician received five unique vignettes for which they indicated their likelihood to order restraint on a 10‐point scale. RESULTS: Nine hundred six distinct vignettes were completed. The mean likelihood that physicians would order restraint was 3.9±3.0 (range 0 (not at all) to 9 (absolutely)). Exploratory regression analysis on physician's likelihood to restrain with independent variables of secondary diagnosis, patient age, sex, time of day, familiarity and trust with requesting nurse, patient behavior, vital signs, oxygen saturation, and dehydration explained 12.5% of variance ( F =5.43, P <.001). Independent factors of unsafe patient behavior ( P =.001) and secondary diagnosis of dementia ( P =.06) resulted in greater likelihood of ordering restraint, whereas lack of trust in the judgment of the reporting nurse ( P =.008) resulted in lower likelihood of ordering restraints. CONCLUSION: Patients' clinical status had less influence on physicians' likelihood of ordering physical restraints than the working relationship with the requesting nurse or the patient's behavior. Interdisciplinary team approaches with active physician input for nonrestraint strategies in the management of patient behavior is emphasized to minimize restraint use.

Background: Falls are among the most common adverse events reported in hospitalized patients. While there is a growing body of literature on fall prevention in the hospital, the data examining the fall rate and risk factors for falls in the immediate post-hospitalization period has not been well described. The objectives of the present study were to determine the fall rate of in-hospital fallers at home and to explore the risk factors for falls during the immediate post-hospitalization period. Methods: We identified patients who sustained a fall on one of 16 medical/surgical nursing units during an inpatient admission to an urban community teaching hospital. After discharge, falls were ascertained using weekly telephone surveillance for 4 weeks post-discharge. Patients were followed until death, loss to follow up or end of study (four weeks). Time spent rehospitalized or institutionalized was censored in rate calculations. Results: Of 95 hospitalized patients who fell during recruitment, 65 (68%) met inclusion criteria and agreed to participate. These subjects contributed 1498 person-days to the study (mean duration of follow-up = 23 days). Seventy-five percent were African-American and 43% were women. Sixteen patients (25%) had multiple falls during hospitalization and 23 patients (35%) suffered a fall-related injury during hospitalization. Nineteen patients (29%) experienced 38 falls at their homes, yielding a fall rate of 25.4/1,000 person-days (95% CI: 17.3-33.4). Twenty-three patients (35%) were readmitted and 3(5%) died. One patient experienced a hip fracture. In exploratory univariate analysis, persons who were likely to fall at home were those who sustained multiple falls in the hospital (p = 0.008). Conclusion: Patients who fall during hospitalization, especially on more than one occasion, are at high risk for falling at home following hospital discharge. Interventions to reduce falls would be appropriate to test in this high-risk population.