Articles related to HEALTH OUTCOMES

Healthgrades communicates performance in two ways—through ratings and awards—to assist consumers in evaluating and comparing hospital performance specific to specialist service lines and speciality emphasis areas. Using Medicare inpatient data from the Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) file purchased from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for the years 2019 through 2021, hospitals were evaluated for overall clinical excellence and measure performance. Data on patient outcomes for 31 diseases or treatments were examined for almost all hospitals in the nation. Also, with the fewest occurrences of 14 avoidable patient safety events, hospitals in the top 10% of the country are honored with the Patient Safety Excellence Award, and analyzing data from surveys of the hospital’s own patients to evaluate patient experience across 10 metrics, the top 15% of hospitals receive the Outstanding Patient Experience Award. Finally, each year, Healthgrades recognizes hospitals in the United States that offer the most common gynecologic treatments and where patients are at a decreased risk of complications during their stay for labor and delivery.

Greater adherence to a number of healthy eating patterns was linked to a lower risk of death in this cohort study, which included 44,085 men and 75,230 women from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (1986-2020) and the Nurses’ Health Study (1984-2020). These relationships held true for persons who were Hispanic, non-Hispanic Black, and non-Hispanic White, as well as for other racial and ethnic groupings.

This meta analysis of antidepressants in MDD included 34 double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled studies covering 20 antidepressants. Outcomes were 6-month relapse rates and tolerability measures. Fourteen of the agents had better relapse rates than placebo. Four — desvenlafaxine, paroxetine, venlafaxine, and vortioxetine — displayed the best efficacy and tolerability.

The final results of this randomized clinical trial of 493 patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) showed that treatment with modified FOLFIRINOX as opposed to gemcitabine significantly increased overall survival (median survival, 53.5 vs. 35.5 months). Younger age, well-differentiated tumors, lower-stage tumors, larger-volume centers, and finishing the prescribed course of therapy all predicted better survival; early disease relapse was an adverse prognostic factor for overall survival from relapse.

The 100-μg dose of the ERBB2 ICD plasmid-based vaccine was associated with the generation of ERBB2-specific type 1 T cells in the majority of patients with ERBB2-expressing breast cancer in this phase 1 nonrandomized clinical trial, and it is currently being assessed in randomized phase 2 trials.

Radiation field size and the effects of ADT sequencing for various oncologic end goals interact significantly. Concurrent/adjuvant ADT was linked to considerably better metastasis-free survival, prostate cancer-specific mortality, and overall survival with prostate-only radiation; the impact of ADT sequencing with whole-pelvic radiation is less clear, with neither consistently showing a benefit.