The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the inadequacy of the U.S. healthcare system to deliver timely and resilient care. According to the American Hospital Association, the pandemic has created a $202 billion loss across the healthcare industry, forcing health care systems to lay off workers and making hospitals scramble to minimize supply chain costs. However, as the demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) grows, hospitals have sacrificed sustainable solutions for disposable options that, although convenient, will exacerbate supply strains, financial burden, and waste. We advocate for reusable gowns as a means to lower health care costs, address climate change, and improve resilience while preserving the safety of health care workers. Reusable gowns' polyester material provides comparable capacity to reduce microbial cross-transmission and liquid penetration. In addition, previous hospitals have reported a 50% cost reduction in gown expenditures after adopting reusable gowns; given the current 2000% price increase in isolation gowns during COVID-19, reusable gown use will build both healthcare resilience and security from price fluctuations. Finally, with the United States' medical waste stream worsening, reusable isolation gowns show promising reductions in energy and water use, solid waste, and carbon footprint. The gowns are shown to withstand laundering 75–100 times in contrast to the single-use disposable gown. The circumstances of the pandemic forewarn the need to shift our single-use PPE practices to standardized reusable applications. Ultimately, sustainable forms of protective equipment can help us prepare for future crises that challenge the resilience of the healthcare system.

Meta-analyses report 20% to 25% citation inaccuracy rates in biomedical literature. 1,2 Citation inaccuracies risk amplifying misinformation and undermining research validity. 3 While many inaccuracies are likely blunders, patterns such as highly cited articles garnering repeated citations via the Matthew effect deserve recognition. 4 We aimed to investigate the prevalence and potential etiologies of citation inaccuracies in surgical literature by systematically characterizing influential surgical articles and references they cited. We hypothesized that citation inaccuracies in influential surgical journals are common but hoped that a simple checklist may facilitate accurate surgical science dissemination.

Background: Clinicians typically estimate heart failure (HF) health status using the New York Heart Association (NYHA) class, which is often discordant with patient-reported health status. It is unknown if collecting patient-reported health status improves the accuracy of clinician assessments. Methods: The Patient-Reported Outcomes in Heart Failure Clinic (PRO-HF) trial is a randomized, non-blinded trial evaluating routine Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire-12 (KCCQ-12) collection in HF clinic. Patients with a scheduled visit to Stanford HF clinic between August 30, 2021, and June 30, 2022 were enrolled and randomized to KCCQ-12 assessment or usual care. In this prespecified sub-study, we evaluated whether access to the KCCQ-12 improved the accuracy of clinicians' NYHA assessment or patients' perspectives on their clinician interaction. We surveyed clinicians regarding their patients' NYHA class, quality of life, and symptom frequency. Clinician responses were compared with patients' KCCQ-12 responses. We surveyed patients regarding their clinician interactions. Results: Of the 1,248 enrolled patients, 1,051 (84.2%) attended a visit during the sub-study. KCCQ-12 results were given to the clinicians treating the 528 patients in the KCCQ-12 arm; the 523 patients in the usual care arm completed the KCCQ-12 without the results being shared. The correlation between NYHA class and KCCQ-12 Overall Summary Score was stronger when clinicians had access to the KCCQ-12 (r=-0.73 vs. r=-0.61, p<0.001). More patients in the KCCQ-12 arm strongly agreed that their clinician understood their symptoms (95.2% vs. 89.7% of respondents; [OR 2.27; 95% CI: 1.32-3.87)]. However, patients in both arms reported similar quality of clinician communication and therapeutic alliance. Conclusions: Collecting the KCCQ-12 in HF clinic improved clinicians' accuracy of health status assessment; correspondingly, patients believed their clinicians better understood their symptoms. Registration: URL: ClinicalTrials.gov; Unique Identifier: NCT04164004

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