The implementation of eMAR and BCMA technology improved patient safety by decreasing the overall rate of ADEs and the rate of transcription errors. These technologies also reduced the harmful impact to patients caused by administration errors.

BACKGROUND: Most patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 have mild to moderate symptoms manageable at home; however, up to 20% develop severe illness requiring additional support. Primary care practices performing population management can use these tools to remotely assess and manage COVID-19 patients and identify those needing additional medical support before becoming critically ill. AIM: We developed an innovative population management approach for managing COVID-19 patients remotely. SETTING: Development, implementation, and evaluation took place in April 2020 within a large urban academic medical center primary care practice. PARTICIPANTS: Our panel consists of 40,000 patients. By April 27, 2020, 305 had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-qPCR. Outreach was performed by teams of doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and nurses. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: Our innovation includes an algorithm, an EMR component, and a twice daily population report for managing COVID-19 patients remotely. PROGRAM EVALUATION: Of the 305 patients with COVID-19 in our practice at time of submission, 196 had returned to baseline; 54 were admitted to hospitals, six of these died, and 40 were discharged. DISCUSSION: Our population management strategy helped us optimize at-home care for our COVID-19 patients and enabled us to identify those who require inpatient medical care in a timely fashion.

Objectives To determine the impact of obtaining housing on geriatric conditions and acute care utilization among older homeless adults. Methods We conducted a 12-month prospective cohort study of 250 older homeless adults recruited from shelters in Boston, Massachusetts between January and June 2010. We determined housing status as reported at the follow-up interview. We examined 4 measures of geriatric conditions at baseline and 12 months: independence in activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living, depressive symptoms, and symptoms of urinary incontinence. We determined number of emergency department visits and hospitalizations over 12 months by medical record review. We used multivariate regression models to evaluate the association between obtaining housing and our outcomes of interest. Results At 12 months, 41% of participants had obtained housing. Compared to participants who remained homeless at follow-up, those with housing had fewer depressive symptoms. Other measures of health status at follow-up did not differ by housing status. Participants who obtained housing had a lower rate of acute care utilization over the follow-up period (IRR, 0.5; 95% CI, 0.4–0.6), with an adjusted annualized rate of acute care visits of 2.5 per year (95% CI, 1.7–3.3) among participants who obtained housed and 5.3 per year (95% CI, 3.8–6.7) among participants who remained homeless. Conclusions Older homeless adults who obtained housing experienced improved depressive symptoms and reduced acute care utilization compared to those who remained homeless.