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Background: Ethnically Chinese adults in Canada and the United States face multiple barriers in accessing equitable, culturally respectful care at the end-of-life. Palliative care (PC) is committed to supporting patients and families in achieving goal-concordant, high-quality serious illness care. Yet, current PC delivery may be culturally misaligned. Therefore, understanding ethnically Chinese patients' use of palliative care may uncover modifiable factors to sustained inequities at the end-of-life., Objective: To compare the use and delivery of PC in the last year of life between ethnically Chinese and non-Chinese adults., Design: Population-based cohort study., Participants: All Ontario adults who died between January 1st, 2012, and October 31st, 2022, in Ontario, Canada., Exposures: Chinese ethnicity., Main Measures: Elements of physician-delivered PC, including model of care (generalist; specialist; mixed), timing and location of initiation, and type of palliative care physician at initial consultation., Key Results: The final study cohort included 527,700 non-Chinese (50.8% female, 77.9 ± 13.0 mean age, 13.0% rural residence) and 13,587 ethnically Chinese (50.8% female, 79.2 ± 13.6 mean age, 0.6% rural residence) adults. Chinese ethnicity was associated with higher likelihoods of using specialist (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.53, 95%CI 1.46-1.60) and mixed (aOR 1.32, 95%CI 1.26-1.38) over generalist models of PC, compared to non-Chinese patients. Chinese ethnicity was also associated with a higher likelihood of PC initiation in the last 30 days of life (aOR 1.07, 95%CI 1.03-1.11), in the hospital setting (aOR 1.24, 95%CI 1.18-1.30), and by specialist PC physicians (aOR 1.33, 95%CI 1.28-1.38)., Conclusions: Chinese ethnicity was associated with a higher likelihood of mixed and specialist models of PC delivery in the last year of life compared to adults who were non-Chinese. These observed differences may be due to later initiation of PC in hospital settings, and potential differences in unmeasured needs that suggest opportunities to initiate early, community-based PC to support ethnically Chinese patients with serious illness., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Society of General Internal Medicine.)

Rationale Patients who are critically ill and require admission to an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) should receive the same quality of care regardless of their sex. Objectives To determine, using population data from a multicenter database in Ontario, Canada, whether sex is associated with differences in the use of 8 best practices and other interventions during the ICU care of mechanically ventilated women and men. Methods Using a cohort of patients receiving mechanical ventilation in 8 intensive care units, our co-primary outcomes were differences in compliance with 8 evidence-based practices between women and men (opioid administration, use of continuous sedation or opioids, sedation minimization; spontaneous breathing trials; stress ulcer prophylaxis; deep venous thrombosis prophylaxis; physical restraint; and mobilization). All analyses were adjusted for confounders using logistic regression and restricted to patients eligible for each best practice. Measurements and Main Results We included 19070 (11910 men, 7160 women) patients who were mechanically ventilated for more than 4 hours. Men and women had similar opioid administration, sedation minimization, stress ulcer prophylaxis, DVT prophylaxis, and mobilization. Women were less likely to receive continuous infusions of sedation or opioids than men (adjusted OR 0.86, 95% CI 0.78, 0.95), and less likely to be physically restrained (adjusted OR 0.82, 95% CI 0.74, 0.89). Conclusions: In this cohort of mechanically ventilated patients, the use of evidence-based practices was similar between women and men, except for a higher utilization of continuous sedative or opioid infusions and physical restraints in men.

Background: The response of Canada's research community to the COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity to examine the country's clinical health research ecosystem. We sought to describe patterns of enrolment across Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)-funded studies on COVID-19., Methods: We identified COVID-19 studies funded by the CIHR and that enrolled participants from Canadian acute care hospitals between January 2020 and April 2023. We collected information on study-and site-level variables from study leads, site investigators, and public domain sources. We described and evaluated factors associated with cumulative enrolment., Results: We obtained information for 23 out of 26 (88%) eligible CIHR-funded studies (16 randomized controlled trials [RCTs] and 7 cohort studies). The 23 studies were managed by 12 Canadian and 3 international coordinating centres. Of 419 Canadian hospitals, 97 (23%) enrolled a total of 28 973 participants - 3876 in RCTs across 78 hospitals (median cumulative enrolment per hospital 30, interquartile range [IQR] 10-61), and 25 097 in cohort studies across 62 hospitals (median cumulative enrolment per hospital 158, IQR 6-348). Of 78 hospitals recruiting participants in RCTs, 13 (17%) enrolled 50% of all RCT participants, whereas 6 of 62 hospitals (9.7%) recruited 54% of participants in cohort studies., Interpretation: A minority of Canadian hospitals enrolled the majority of participants in CIHR-funded studies on COVID-19. This analysis sheds light on the Canadian health research ecosystem and provides information for multiple key partners to consider ways to realize the full research potential of Canada's health systems., Competing Interests: Competing interests:: Christopher Yarnell reports receiving a Vanier Scholarship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), outside the submitted work. Kathryn Rowan reports holding the role of programme director, Health & Social Care Delivery Research Programme, UK National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), a part-time, paid secondment from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre. Kusum Menon reports receiving salary support from a CHEO Foundation Research Chair in Pediatric Intensive Care Medicine. Dr. Menon has also received a CIHR grant for researching stress hydrocortisone in pediatric septic shock. Dr. Menon is the chair of the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group. Robert Fowler reports receiving a grant from CIHR in support of the COVID-19 Network of Clinical Trials Networks. Alison Fox-Robichaud is the nominated principal applicant and holder of the CIHR Sepsis Canada network grant. As scientific director of Sepsis Canada, Dr. Fox-Robichaud also reports receiving additional support from McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences. John Marshall reports receiving support from CIHR in support of the current manuscript. Dr. Marshall has also participated on a data safety monitoring or advisory board for the AM Pharma REVIVAL Trial and the SHIPSS Trial, and is the chair of the International Forum for Acute Care Trialists. Michelle Kho reports receiving support as the Canada Research Chair in Critical Care Rehabilitation and Knowledge Translation and from Sepsis Canada and the COVID-19 Network of Clinical Trials Networks, in support of the current manuscript. No other competing interests were declared., (© 2024 CMA Impact Inc. or its licensors.)

Purpose: Invasive ventilation is a fundamental treatment in intensive care but its precise timing is difficult to determine. This study aims at assessing the effect of initiating invasive ventilation versus waiting, in patients with hypoxemic respiratory failure without immediate reason for intubation on one-year mortality., Methods: Emulation of a target trial to estimate the benefit of immediately initiating invasive ventilation in hypoxemic respiratory failure, versus waiting, among patients within the first 48-h of hypoxemia. The eligible population included non-intubated patients with SpO 2 /FiO 2  ≤ 200 and SpO 2  ≤ 97%. The target trial was emulated using a single-center database (MIMIC-IV) which contains granular information about clinical status. The hourly probability to receive mechanical ventilation was continuously estimated. The hazard ratios for the primary outcome, one-year mortality, and the secondary outcome, 30-day mortality, were estimated using weighted Cox models with stabilized inverse probability weights used to adjust for measured confounding., Results: 2996 Patients fulfilled the inclusion criteria of whom 792 were intubated within 48 h. Among the non-invasive support devices, the use of oxygen through facemask was the most common (75%). Compared to patients with the same probability of intubation but who were not intubated, intubation decreased the hazard of dying for the first year after ICU admission HR 0.81 (95% CI 0.68-0.96, p = 0.018). Intubation was associated with a 30-day mortality HR of 0.80 (95% CI 0.64-0.99, p = 0.046)., Conclusion: The initiation of mechanical ventilation in patients with acute hypoxemic respiratory failure reduced the hazard of dying in this emulation of a target trial., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Objectives: Diabetes has been reported to be associated with an increased risk of death among patients with COVID-19. However, the available studies lack detail on COVID-19 illness severity and measurement of relevant comorbidities., Methods: We conducted a multicentre, retrospective cohort study of patients 18 years of age and older who were hospitalized with COVID-19 between January 1, 2020, and November 30, 2020, in Ontario, Canada, and Copenhagen, Denmark. Chart abstraction emphasizing comorbidities and disease severity was performed by trained research personnel. The association between diabetes and death was measured using Poisson regression. The main outcome measure was in-hospital 30-day risk of death., Results: Our study included 1,133 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in Ontario and 305 in Denmark, of whom 405 and 75 patients, respectively, had pre-existing diabetes. In both Ontario and Denmark, patients with diabetes were more likely to be older; have chronic kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, and higher troponin levels; and be receiving antibiotics, when compared with adults without diabetes. In Ontario, 24% (n=96) of adults with diabetes died compared with 15% (n=109) of adults without diabetes. In Denmark, 16% (n=12) of adults with diabetes died in hospital compared with 13% (n=29) of those without diabetes. In Ontario, the crude mortality ratio among patients with diabetes was 1.60 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.24 to 2.07) and in the adjusted regression model it was 1.19 (95% CI, 0.86 to 1.66). In Denmark, the crude mortality ratio among patients with diabetes was 1.27 (95% CI, 0.68 to 2.36) and in the adjusted model it was 0.87 (95% CI, 0.49 to 1.54). Meta-analysis of the 2 rate ratios from each region resulted in a crude mortality ratio of 1.55 (95% CI, 1.22 to 1.96) and an adjusted mortality ratio of 1.11 (95% CI, 0.84 to 1.47)., Conclusion: The presence of diabetes was not strongly associated with in-hospital COVID-19 mortality independent of illness severity and other comorbidities., (Copyright © 2023 Canadian Diabetes Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: There is wide variation in mortality among patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Whether this is related to patient or hospital factors is unknown., Objective: To compare the risk of mortality for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and to determine whether the majority of that variation was explained by differences in patient characteristics across sites., Design, Setting, and Participants: An international multicenter cohort study of hospitalized adults with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 enrolled from 10 hospitals in Ontario, Canada and 8 hospitals in Copenhagen, Denmark between January 1, 2020 and November 11, 2020., Main Outcomes and Measures: Inpatient mortality. We used a multivariable multilevel regression model to compare the in-hospital mortality risk across hospitals and quantify the variation attributable to patient-level factors., Results: There were 1364 adults hospitalized with COVID-19 in Ontario (n = 1149) and in Denmark (n = 215). In Ontario, the absolute risk of in-hospital mortality ranged from 12.0% to 39.8% across hospitals. Ninety-eight percent of the variation in mortality in Ontario was explained by differences in the characteristics of the patients. In Denmark, the absolute risk of inpatients ranged from 13.8% to 20.6%. One hundred percent of the variation in mortality in Denmark was explained by differences in the characteristics of the inpatients., Conclusion: There was wide variation in inpatient COVID-19 mortality across hospitals, which was largely explained by patient-level factors, such as age and severity of presenting illness. However, hospital-level factors that could have affected care, including resource availability and capacity, were not taken into account. These findings highlight potential limitations in comparing crude mortality rates across hospitals for the purposes of reporting on the quality of care., (© 2022 Society of Hospital Medicine.)

Purpose: To evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Canadian intensive care unit (ICU) workers., Methods: Between June and August 2020, we distributed a cross-sectional online survey of ICU workers evaluating the impact of the pandemic, coping strategies, symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Impact of Events Scale-Revised), and psychological distress, anxiety, and depression (Kessler Psychological Distress Scale). We performed regression analyses to determine the predictors of psychological symptoms., Results: We analyzed responses from 455 ICU workers (80% women; 67% from Ontario; 279 nurses, 69 physicians, and 107 other healthcare professionals). Respondents felt that their job put them at great risk of exposure (60%), were concerned about transmitting COVID-19 to family members (76%), felt more stressed at work (67%), and considered leaving their job (37%). Overall, 25% had probable PTSD and 18% had minimal or greater psychological distress. Nurses were more likely to report PTSD symptoms (33%) and psychological distress (23%) than physicians (5% for both) and other health disciplines professionals (19% and 14%). Variables associated with PTSD and psychological distress included female sex (beta-coefficient [B], 1.59; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.20 to 2.10 and B, 3.79; 95% CI, 1.79 to 5.78, respectively; P < 0.001 for differences in scores across groups) and perceived increased risk due to PPE shortage or inadequate PPE training (B, 1.87; 95% CI, 1.51 to 2.31 and B, 4.88; 95% CI, 3.34 to 6.43, respectively). Coping strategies included talking to friends/family/colleagues (80%), learning about COVID-19 (78%), and physical exercise (68%). Over half endorsed the following workplace strategies as valuable: hospital-provided scrubs, clear communication and protocols by hospitals, knowing their voice is heard, subsidized parking, and gestures of appreciation from leadership., Conclusions: This survey study shows that ICU workers have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic with high levels of stress and psychological burden. Respondents endorsed communication, protocols, and appreciation from leadership as helpful mitigating strategies., (© 2021. Canadian Anesthesiologists' Society.)

Investigating clustered data requires consideration of the variation across clusters, including consideration of the component of the total individual variance that is at the cluster level. The median odds ratio and analogues are useful intuitive measures available to communicate variability in outcomes across clusters using the variance of random intercepts from a multilevel regression model. However, the median odds ratio cannot describe variability across clusters for different patient subgroups because the random intercepts do not vary by subgroup. To empower investigators interested in equity and other applications of this scenario, we describe an extension of the median odds ratio to multilevel regression models employing both random intercepts and random coefficients. By example, we conducted a retrospective cohort analysis of variation in care limitations (goals of care preferences) according to ethnicity in patients admitted to intensive care. Using mixed-effects logistic regression clustered by hospital, we demonstrated that patients of non-Caucasian ethnicity were less likely to have care limitations but experienced similar variability across hospitals. Limitations of the extended median odds ratio include the large sample sizes and computational power needed for models with random coefficients. This extension of the median odds ratio to multilevel regression models with random coefficients will provide insight into cluster-level variability for researchers interested in equity and other phenomena where variability by patient subgroup is important., (© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

Wrong site surgery is a serious safety event that can result in temporary or even permanent harm. Various safety checklists and procedures have been added to our standard work in the operating room, but errors still get through our safety nets and patients are harmed. In this case report, we describe a wrong site frenulectomy in a child and discuss the root cause analysis of this error and also SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, timed) preventative actions that could be put into place to prevent a recurrence.