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BACKGROUND: Unhealthy alcohol use has adverse effects on HIV treatment. Screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) has some evidence of efficacy but may not be sufficient for those with low motivation or comorbid substance use. OBJECTIVE: To examine the effectiveness of motivational interviewing (MI) and emailed feedback (EF) among primary care HIV-positive patients, compared with treatment as usual care (UC) only, which included SBIRT. DESIGN: Randomized clinical trial. PARTICIPANTS: Six hundred fourteen adult HIV-positive patients in Kaiser Permanente Northern California who reported prior-year unhealthy alcohol use. INTERVENTION: Participants were randomized to either three sessions of MI (one in person and two by phone), information regarding alcohol risks via EF through a patient portal, or UC alone. MI and EF participants who reported unhealthy alcohol use at 6 months were offered additional MI and EF treatment, respectively. MAIN MEASURES: Participant-reported unhealthy alcohol use (defined as ≥ 4/≥ 5 drinks per day for women/ men), alcohol problems at 12 months, based on blinded telephone interviews. Secondary outcomes included drug use and antiretroviral (ART) adherence. KEY RESULTS: At 12 months, there were no overall group differences, but in all three arms, there were declines in unhealthy alcohol use and alcohol-related problems (p < 0.001). Participants reporting low motivation to reduce drinking at baseline were less likely to report unhealthy alcohol use if they received MI vs. EF and UC (p = 0.013). At 6 months, reported illegal drug use/misuse of prescription drugs other than marijuana was lower in the MI arm than EF or UC (p = 0.012). There were no differences in ART adherence between groups. CONCLUSIONS: In a randomized trial of HIV-positive patients using two behavioral interventions compared with SBIRT alone, participants in all three conditions reduced unhealthy alcohol use. MI may provide added benefit for patients with low motivation or who report illegal drug use/misuse of prescription drugs.

BACKGROUND: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a chronic condition with a high economic burden as well as drug treatments that have not all demonstrated effects on longevity. Managed care organizations want to improve health outcomes in these complex patients but lack actionable evidence to make informed decisions on which therapies are most effective among their members and may also control total health care spending. OBJECTIVE: To produce actionable evidence by identifying antidiabetic treatments that are effective and may reduce total cost of care in various risk groups of patients with T2DM, using insurance claims data that includes medical claims and pharmacy dispensing data among members of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey with T2DM. What this study addsCONCLUSIONS: In the Horizon membership, we confirmed that SGLT-2 inhibitors reduce HF hospitalizations, resulting in reduced medical spending and savings in total cost of care. Regulatory-grade analytics of local data provided the confidence to encourage increased SGLT-2 inhibitor use to produce better outcomes and save total cost of care despite higher pharmacy spending.

Background-External ventricular drainage (EVD) is a standard approach for both monitoring intracranial pressure (ICP) and draining cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) for patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). Documenting an accurate ICP value is important to assess the status of the brain, which would require the EVD system to be leveled properly and closed to CSF drainage for an adequate period of time. It is suggested that a minimum period of 5-min EVD closure is needed before documenting a true ICP, however, there is no commonly agreed upon standard for documenting ICP. To obtain an insight into how well the intermittent EVD clamping procedure is performed for ICP documentation, we conducted a retrospective analysis of ICP recordings obtained through EVD from 107 SAH patients. Methods-TheEVD was kept open for continuous CSF drainage, and then intermittently closed for ICP documentation. For each EVD closure, mean ICP, standard deviation of ICP, duration of EVD closure, time interval between two adjacent EVD closures were studied. The total number of EVD closures was calculated for each patient. We developed an algorithm to evaluate whether ICP reached a new equilibrium before the EVD was re-opened to drainage. The percentage of EVD closures that reach the equilibrium was calculated.Results-The 107 patients had 32,755 EVD closures in total, among which 65.9% instances lasted less than 1 minute and only 16.3% of all the EVD closure episodes lasted longer than 5 minutes. The median duration of each EVD closure was 25 sec [IQR, 10.2 sec -2.33 min]. Only 22.9% of the EVD closures reached ICP equilibrium before EVD re-opening.

Quality of life (QoL) is relevant to people living with HIV (PLWH) with increased life expectancy because of antiretroviral therapy. Our cross-sectional study examined associations between sociodemographic, HIV-related and psychological variables, and QoL, overall and by age. PLWH (n = 614) completed questionnaires at enrollment in an alcohol treatment study. QoL was assessed by the 12-item Short Form Survey, which includes physical and mental domains. Linear regression models evaluated the association of age and other factors with mental and physical QoL. PLWH younger than 50 years (n = 310) reported poorer mental QoL but better physical QoL compared to older PLWH (n = 304). Poorer mental QoL was associated with substance use, depression, and anxiety. Poorer physical QoL was associated with depression and history of injection drug use. We identified age-group differences in QoL for this primary care-based sample. Health care providers can use our findings to guide patient-centered care.

This study identified modifiable participant characteristics associated with alcohol outcomes in PWH, including anxiety and depression severity, tobacco use, and other substance use.

Within a large integrated health care system that includes local, regional, and national medical centers and offices, quality and patient safety teams, and research institutes, more than 58 000 nurses are employed, with the vast majority providing point-of-care service to patients and members. A small but increasingly important number of nurses are involved in quality improvement and research teams to improve patient care. Within this environment, a number of developments point to a growing need for nursing leadership in systems-level and delivery science policies and research. This article describes a partnership between clinical operations leaders and researchers (nurse scientists) to determine and utilize evidence-based practices to meet a system goal. The first objective of this article is to describe the barriers and potential solutions in combining practice, quality improvement, and research efforts across regions within a large integrated health care system. The second objective is to describe the uniqueness and importance of nurse leaders across interdisciplinary teams to simultaneously pursue research, quality improvement, and operational goals for the organization.

Background Sleep disturbances constitute a common complication in pediatric cancer patients and survivors and are frequently severe enough to warrant treatment. Suboptimal sleep has been associated with decreased emotional well-being and cognitive functioning and increased behavioral problems. Standardized guidelines for non-pharmacological sleep interventions for adults with cancer exist, but no standard of care intervention or standard guidelines are available to guide such intervention in pediatric cancer patients and survivors. Therefore, effective behavioral interventions for improving sleep quality need to be identified. The objective of the review is to evaluate the effect of non-pharmacological sleep interventions on sleep quality in pediatric cancer patients and survivors. Methods The review will consider studies that include children and adolescents between 0 and 18 years diagnosed with cancer or who have a history of cancer who have non-respiratory sleep disturbance. We will include experimental and quasi-experimental studies evaluating non-pharmacological interventions such as psychological interventions, technical/device interventions, interventions targeting physical activity, and complementary and alternative medicine interventions (e.g., yoga, massage, music). Interventions involving medications, ingestible supplements, products purported to work through absorption, and medical devices will be excluded. Primary outcome will be sleep quality as measured by methods including retrospective ratings, daily sleep diary, and validated questionnaires. Secondary outcomes will include total sleep time, sleep onset latency, wake after sleep onset, daytime sleepiness, and daytime sleep duration (naps) as measured by retrospective ratings, daily sleep diary, validated questionnaires, and/or actigraphy. Databases will include MEDLINE (Ovid), EMBASE (Ovid), Cochrane Library, CINAHL (Ebsco), and PsycINFO (Ovid) and will be queried from database inception to present. Two reviewers will independently screen all citations, full-text articles, and extract data. The study methodological quality will be assessed using Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) critical appraisal tools. Data will be extracted and findings pooled and synthesized using a meta-aggregation approach via the JBI System for the Unified Management, Assessment, and Review of Information (SUMARI). If feasible, we will conduct random effects meta-analysis. Additional analyses will be conducted to explore the potential sources of heterogeneity (e.g., methodological quality, study design, outcome measures). Discussion This systematic review will synthesize and consolidate evidence on existing non-pharmacological interventions to improve sleep in pediatric cancer patients and survivors. Findings may help inform practitioners working with pediatric cancer patients and survivors experiencing sleep disturbances and is intended to identify gaps and opportunities to improve methodical quality of further non-pharmacological sleep intervention research in this population toward developing an eventual standard of care. Systematic review registration PROSPERO CRD42020200397.