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The number of cancer screenings has recently begun to rise, but has not yet reached previously expected levels: June 16 weekly volumes remained 29%, 36%, and 35% lower than their pre-COVID-19 levels for breast, colon, and cervical cancer screenings. The gap between the expected screenings and the actual screenings created a sizable deficit of “missed” screenings…

Using data from nearly 50,000 hospitalized COVID-19 positive patients across the United States, statistically significant geographic variations in supportive oxygen treatment were demonstrated and not explained by differences in age, sex, or severity…

Life was so normal a few weeks ago. For me, and I imagine for many other health care workers, before the novel coronavirus etched its deadly path across the U.S., day broke to a remarkably similar routine. The alarm would go off at six-thirty; I would walk my dear-but-crazy mutt, Scrappy; swim a mile; grab a coffee; and then head into a clinic of waiting teenagers. I would greet my coworkers with hugs. And I would spend the day seeing the patients I love.

COVID-19 is primarily a respiratory infection; however, there are multiple examples of multi-organ and systemic dysfunction associated with this infection. In addition to lung damage, it appears that the virus affects the lining of blood vessels, potentially leading to clotting, embolization, and organ damage…

The number of patients receiving first-time prescriptions for Medications for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD) decreased by over 30% in the spring of 2020 when compared to trends observed in EHR data from January 2017 to May 2020. This finding suggests that patients at risk for opioid use disorder (OUD) and overdose are increasingly vulnerable during […]

This brief was updated on June 26, 2020, with data as of June 18, 2020. Overall findings remain consistent, but the percentage of patients with an unknown outcome has decreased from 34% to 6%. Here we examine the mortality of patients who received invasive mechanical ventilation as treatment for acute respiratory failure due to COVID-19…

Evidence from one large health system—NYU Langone Health—at an epicenter of the coronavirus disease 2019 outbreak in the United States shows possibility of sharp and rapid transition to telemedicine in a matter of days.

For numerous reasons, some patients are tested for SARS-CoV-2 virus multiple times, and a small percentage of patients test positive more than once. We were interested in better understanding how often patients undergo multiple tests, and what the time frame is between the first and last positive results. We speculate that fewer days between repeat […]

Recent data show that, while overall visit volumes have decreased dramatically since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, telehealth visits overall have increased 300-fold.1 This brief describes the diagnoses and specialties that saw the largest visit volumes of telehealth, with the goal of informing future strategy around telehealth…

Story contributed by OCHIN. Recent EHR data show that while the rate of COVID-19 infection appears to be slowing in some parts of the country, the number of patients testing positive for the virus continues to grow. Across the OCHIN network of providers, which treats a total of 5 million complex and underserved patients nationally, […]

Using data from 190,194 COVID-19 patients, the following conditions were found to be most strongly associated with a higher risk of hospitalization and death: Heart failure, diabetes, a weakened immune system, COPD, and a BMI of 40 or higher…

Recent EHR data show that immunization administrations for pediatric patients have decreased by 42% in the spring of 2020 compared to prior years. It is estimated that 260,000 immunizations expected for March 8-May 9 were missed or delayed across all age groups at sampled organizations. Patients under 6 months of age showed the smallest reduction […]

Severe obesity, defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 40 kg/m2 or higher, has been identified by the CDC as a risk factor for more severe COVID-19 illness. This brief examines the relationship between obesity and severity of illness for adult COVID-19 positive patients. In this sample of 119,582 COVID-19 positive patients, 79% have a BMI documented in their electronic medical record…

There has been recent conversation about the role that smoking status may play in severity of COVID-19 disease. To investigate this role, we examined the relationship between smoking status, as documented in the electronic health record, and general outcome severity of COVID-19 in a large national cohort of adult COVID-19 positive patients…

Physicians at Mount Sinai are exploring new avenues of clinical investigation, based on the beneficial response of patients to tPA in a small, preliminary case series. Use of tPA, short for tissue plasminogen activator, is common in emergencies such as ischemic stroke, pulmonary embolism, and other dangerous situations where its clot-busting clinical benefits outweigh the risks…

With many states issuing stay-at-home orders, healthcare organizations have decreased in-person office visits and increased telehealth visits. We found that telehealth visits increased 300-fold in this timeframe in 2020, and adoption of telehealth was consistent across adult age groups…

COVID-19 hospitalization and mortality information were assessed in a sample of 36 million active patients.1 Nearly 10 million of those patients have documented hypertension, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), or moderate/severe asthma as of April 30, 2020. The summarized data were contributed by 31 health systems (300 hospitals) across 18 states. Table 1 shows…

EHR data show a recent abrupt drop – between 86% and 94% – in preventive cancer screenings performed across the United States, presumably due to access disruptions caused by COVID-19. The data set includes 2.7 million patient records from 39 organizations that represent 190 hospitals spanning 23 states. If the trend continues, the data suggest that many cancer cases could go undiagnosed or be diagnosed at a later stage with a poorer prognosis…

Researchers from Ochsner and local lab BioInfoExperts have sequenced the genetic code of samples from their COVID-19 patients to learn more about the virus’s spread in Louisiana and how it continues to evolve. New Orleans has not only some of the highest per-capita rates of COVID-19 infection, but also a high rate of underlying health illness in the population…

As the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps the globe, there is a rush to find medications that, if taken before COVID-19 is acquired, may be protective against infection. Clinical trials are currently examining drugs in many different classes. Figure 1 shows the percentage of patients who acquire COVID-19 after taking each medication chronically…