African American Babies Born in Highly Segregated Areas at Higher Risk of Brain Hemorrhage

AHRQ Stats

Access more information on this topic in the associated statistical brief.

Today's Headlines:

• African American Babies Born in Highly Segregated Areas at Higher Risk of Brain Hemorrhage.
• AHRQ Report: 3.5 Million Hospitalizations Considered Potentially Avoidable.
• AHRQ Grantee Profile Highlights How Nicholas G. Castle, Ph.D., M.H.A., Works To Enhance Quality and Safety in Long-Term Care Settings.
• Highlights From AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network.
• AHRQ in the Professional Literature.

African American Babies Born in Highly Segregated Areas at Higher Risk of Brain Hemorrhage

Infants born to African American mothers living in highly segregated residential areas have an increased risk of intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH), a dangerous condition that involves bleeding in or around the ventricles of the brain, according to an AHRQ-funded study published in Pediatrics. In their analysis of medical and census data of more than 70,000 infants, researchers found that babies born in areas of residential racial segregation had a 1.08 times greater risk of developing IVH. When this risk was stratified by race, white babies in areas of residential racial segregation experienced no increased risk, while the higher risk to African American infants remained (1.16 times greater). Researchers concluded that residential racial segregation is a novel social determinant of the health of African American infants and that more research into the potential causes of this disparity is warranted. Access the abstract.

AHRQ Report: 3.5 Million Hospitalizations Considered Potentially Avoidable

A new statistical brief from AHRQ’s Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project quantifies potentially avoidable hospital stays, which evidence suggests may be avoidable, in part, through timely and quality primary and preventive care. Among the findings for 2017:

• As many as 3.5 million adult hospital stays were considered potentially preventable, costing nearly $34 billion.
• Eight percent of approximately 1.3 million pediatric hospital stays were considered potentially preventable, costing nearly $562 million.
• Heart failure was the most common and most expensive reason for potentially preventable hospital stays among adults. That diagnosis represented more than 1.1 million hospital stays with costs totaling $11.2 billion.

Access the statistical brief, as well as an interactive data visualization tool to explore potentially avoidable hospital stays by age group, community-level income and geographic region.

AHRQ Grantee Profile Highlights How Nicholas G. Castle, Ph.D., M.H.A., Works To Enhance Quality and Safety in Long-Term Care Settings

Read our latest grantee profile on Nicholas G. Castle, Ph.D., M.H.A., who through AHRQ funding has examined the many factors that impact the quality of care provided in nursing homes, including staffing, resident satisfaction and adverse event reporting. Dr. Castle is the chair of and professor in the Department of Health Policy, Management, and Leadership at West Virginia University in Morgantown. Learn more about Dr. Castle's work and access additional AHRQ grantee profiles.

Highlights From AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network

AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network (PSNet) highlights journal articles, books and tools related to patient safety. Articles featured this week include:

• Workplace team resilience: a systematic review and conceptual development.
• Indication-specific opioid prescribing for US patients with Medicaid or private Insurance, 2017.
• Going to the COVID-19 Gemba: using observation and high reliability strategies to achieve safety in a time of crisis.

Review additional new publications in PSNet’s current issue or access recent cases and commentaries in AHRQ’s WebM&M (Morbidity and Mortality Rounds on the Web).

AHRQ in the Professional Literature

Primary care: the new frontier for reducing readmissions. Saluja S, Hochman M, Bourgoin A, et al. J Gen Intern Med 2019 Dec;34(12):2894-7. Epub 2019 Oct 16. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Catheter management after benign transurethral prostate surgery: RAND/UCLA Appropriateness criteria. Skolarus TA, Dauw CA, Fowler KE, et al. Am J Manag Care 2019 Dec 1;25(12):e366-e72. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

It's time to get serious about pediatric readiness. Michelson KA. J Pediatr 2020 Mar;2189-10. Epub 2019 Nov 5. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

The role of clinical pharmacy anticoagulation services in direct oral anticoagulant monitoring. Jones AE, King JB, Kim K, et al. J Thromb Thrombolysis 2020 Feb 21. [Epub ahead of print.] Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Clinician wellness during the COVID-19 pandemic: extraordinary times and unusual challenges for the allergist/immunologist. Bansal P, Bingemann TA, Greenhawt M, et al. J Allergy Clin Immunol Pract 2020 Jun;8(6):1781-90.e3. Epub 2020 Apr 4. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Factors associated with diagnostic error on admission to a PICU: a pilot study. Cifra CL, Ten Eyck P, Dawson JD, et al. Pediatr Crit Care Med 2020 May;21(5):e311-e5. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Willingness to engage in traditional and novel depression treatment modalities among myocardial infarction survivors. Moise N, Thanataveerat A, Florez-Salamanca L, et al. J Gen Intern Med 2020 May;35(5):1620-2. Epub 2019 Oct 28. Access the abstract on PubMed®.

Long-term functional decline after high-risk elective colorectal surgery in older adults. De Roo AC, Li Y, Abrahamse PH, et al. Dis Colon Rectum 2020 Jan;63(1):75-83. Access the abstract on PubMed®.