Background National guidelines disagree on who should be screened for undiagnosed diabetes. No existing diabetes risk score is highly generalizable or widely followed. Objectives To develop a new diabetes screening score and compare it to other available screening instruments (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Diabetes Association (ADA) and U.S. Preventive Services Task Force guidelines; two ADA risk questionnaires; and Rotterdam model) Design Cross-sectional data. Setting National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2004 for model development, and NHANES 2005–2006 plus a combined cohort of two community studies, Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) and Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS), for validation. Participants U.S. adults ≥20 years old. Measurements A risk scoring algorithm for undiagnosed diabetes, defined as fasting plasma glucose ≥7.0 mmol/L(126 mg/dL) without known diabetes, was developed in the development dataset. Logistic regression was used to determine participant characteristics that were independently associated with undiagnosed diabetes. The new algorithm and other methods were evaluated by standard diagnostic and feasibility measures. Results Age, sex, family history of diabetes, history of hypertension, obesity, and physical activity were associated with undiagnosed diabetes. In NHANES (in ARIC/CHS), the cutpoint of ≥5 selected 30(40)% of persons for diabetes screening and yielded sensitivity of 79(72)%, specificity of 67(62)%, positive predictive value of 10(10)% and likelihood ratio-positive of 2.39(1.89). In contrast, the comparison scores yielded sensitivity of 44–100%, specificity of 10–73%, positive predictive value of 5–8%, and likelihood ratio-positive of 1.11–1.98. Limitations Data during pregnancy were not available. Conclusions This new diabetes screening score, simple and easily implemented, seems to demonstrate improvements upon the existing methods. Future studies are needed to evaluate it in diverse populations in real world settings. Primary Funding Source Clinical and Translational Science Center at Cornell Medical College.

Unlike clinical and demographic variables, process-of-care variables are modifiable and amenable to quality improvement. We observed that rapid antibiotic initiation and appropriate antibiotic selection in the emergency department have a statistically significant association with shorter LOS. These findings suggest quality improvement targeted at these processes of care may improve resource utilization and reduce LOS for patients with community-acquired pneumonia.

For gastrectomies and colectomies, risk-adjusted mortality is substantially lower when performed by subspecialty interested and trained surgeons, even after accounting for hospital and surgeon volume and patient characteristics. These findings may have implications for surgical training programs and for regionalization of complex surgical procedures.

No abstract

No abstract