Avoidance of preferred beta-lactam therapy in patients who report allergy is associated with an increased risk of adverse events. Development of inpatient programs aimed at accurately identifying beta-lactam allergies to safely promote beta-lactam administration among these patients is warranted.
IMPORTANCE Handover is the process of transferring pertinent patient information and clinical responsibility between health care practitioners. Few studies have examined morning handover from the overnight trainee to the daytime team.OBJECTIVE To characterize current morning handover practices in 2 academic medical centers by assessing the frequency of omissions of clinically important overnight issues during morning handover and identifying factors that influence the occurrence of such omissions.
DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTSA prospective, point-prevalence study was conducted in the general internal medicine wards of 2 tertiary care academic medical centers in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 2012 and 2013. Participants included on-call third-year medical students and first-and second-year residents.
MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURESCompleteness of morning handover of clinically important overnight issues identified using a targeted medical records review and processes of morning handover characterized by direct observation.
RESULTSWe identified 141 clinically important overnight issues during 26 days of observation. The on-call trainee omitted 40.4% (95% CI, 32.3%-48.5%) of clinically important issues during morning handover and did not document any information in the patient's medical record for 85.8% (95% CI 80.1%-91.6%) of these issues. By univariate analysis, running the list patient-by-patient (ie, the entire team discusses each patient) (OR, 4.32; 95% CI, 1.94-9.60; P < .001) and using a dedicated handover location (OR, 2.61; 95% CI, 1.30-5.22; P = .007) positively correlated with handover of an issue taking place, whereas distractions in the meeting area inversely correlated with the likelihood of handover of an issue taking place (OR, 0.96 for every increase in 1 distraction; 95% CI, 0.93-0.98; P = .002). Using a multivariate mixed-effects model, only running the list remained as an independent predictor of the handover of an issue (OR, 3.80; 95% CI, 1.25-11.49; P = .02).
CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCEOn-call trainees omit numerous clinically important issues when handing over to the daytime team. Training programs should introduce educational activities and workflow changes, and provide dedicated time and a distraction-free environment, to improve handover of on-call issues.
We describe the first documented case of meningitis caused by Lodderomyces elongisporus. Identification of L. elongisporus was made on the basis of an arachnoid biopsy with pathology samples sent for fungal internal transcribed spacer sequencing after multiple central nervous system (CNS) fungal culture specimens were negative. After final diagnosis, treatment was transitioned from amphotericin to fluconazole, which, combined with insertion of lumbar drain followed by a permanent ventriculopleural shunt, resulted in significant clinical improvement. Our report reviews the literature of (1) cases of L. elongisporus, which almost exclusively describe fungemia or endocarditis; (2) CNS infections caused by Candida parapsilosis, an organism with which L. elongisporus was previously conflated; and (3) management of fungal meningitis–associated hydrocephalus.
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