Temporal trends in the prevalence and severity of aortic stenosis within a contemporary and diverse community-based cohort
Data on the epidemiology of aortic stenosis (AS) are primarily derived from single center experiences and administrative claims data that do not delineate by degree of disease severity. An observational cohort study of adults with echocardiographic AS was conducted January…
Clinical decision support to Optimize Care of patients with Atrial Fibrillation or flutter in the Emergency department: protocol of a stepped-wedge cluster randomized pragmatic trial (O’CAFÉ trial)
Management of adults with atrial fibrillation (AF) or atrial flutter in the emergency department (ED) includes rate reduction, cardioversion, and stroke prevention. Different approaches to these components of care may lead to variation in frequency of hospitalization and stroke prevention…
Risk of cardiac events after elective versus urgent or emergent noncardiac surgery: Implications for quality measurement and improvement
Patient populations differ for elective vs urgent and emergent surgery. The effect of this difference on surgical outcome is not well understood and may be important for improving surgical safety. Our primary hypothesis was that there is an association of…
Limitations to Health Care Quality Measurement: Assessing Hospital Variation in Risk of Cardiac Events After Noncardiac Surgery
Limited sample size, incomplete measures, and inadequate risk adjustment adversely influence accurate health care quality measurements, surgical quality measurements, and accurate comparisons among hospitals. Since these measures are linked to resources for quality improvement and reimbursement, improving the accuracy of…
Association of Thoracic Aortic Aneurysm Size With Long-term Patient Outcomes: The KP-TAA Study
The risk of adverse events from ascending thoracic aorta aneurysm (TAA) is poorly understood but drives clinical decision-making. To evaluate the association of TAA size with outcomes in nonsyndromic patients in a large non-referral-based health care delivery system. The Kaiser…
Largest-ever study of thoracic aortic aneurysm supports treatment guidelines
Thromboembolism after treatment with 4-factor prothrombin complex concentrate or plasma for warfarin-related bleeding
Limited data exist in large, representative populations about whether the risk of thromboembolic events varies after receiving four-factor human prothrombin complex concentrate (4F-PCC) versus treatment with human plasma for urgent reversal of oral vitamin K antagonist therapy. We conducted a…
Risk of severe COVID-19 infection among adults with prior exposure to children
Susceptibility and severity of COVID-19 infection vary widely. Prior exposure to endemic coronaviruses, common in young children, may protect against SARS-CoV-2. We evaluated risk of severe COVID-19 among adults with and without exposure to young children in a large, integrated…
Comparison of coronary revascularization strategies in older adults presenting with acute coronary syndromes
The optimal coronary revascularization strategy to maximize the patient-centered outcome of days alive and out of hospital (DAOH), in multimorbid older (≥65-years) adults after an acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is incompletely understood. Using Kaiser Permanente Northern California Health Plan databases,…
Exposure to small children linked to lower risk of severe COVID-19
Diagnostic Yield, Outcomes, and Resource Utilization With Different Ambulatory Electrocardiographic Monitoring Strategies
Accurate diagnosis of arrhythmias is improved with longer monitoring duration but can risk delayed diagnosis. We compared diagnostic yield, outcomes, and resource utilization by arrhythmia monitoring strategy in 330 matched adults (mean age 64 years, 40% women, and 30% non-White)…
Optimizing Management of Valvular Heart Disease
This study will characterize the management and outcomes of KPNC patients with valvular heart disease by evaluating surveillance patterns for moderate and severe valve disease, assessing clinical outcomes in those with guideline-recommended surveillance, developing methods to ensure evidence-based follow-up and…
Emergency care for heart attacks and strokes rebounds
Large-scale identification of aortic stenosis and its severity using natural language processing on electronic health records
Systematic case identification is critical to improving population health, but widely used diagnosis code-based approaches for conditions like valvular heart disease are inaccurate and lack specificity. To develop and validate natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to identify aortic stenosis (AS)…
Artificial intelligence can help improve care for people with heart disease
Duration of Dual Antiplatelet Therapy After Percutaneous Coronary Intervention for Chronic Total Occlusion
The optimal duration of dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) after treatment of chronic total occlusions (CTO) with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is unknown. We aimed to determine if extended (> 12 months) DAPT was associated with a net clinical benefit. The…
Heart attack patients who follow more guidelines live longer
Association Between Aging of the US Population and Heart Disease Mortality From 2011 to 2017
A deceleration in the rate of decrease of heart disease (HD) mortality between 2011 and 2014 has been reported. In the context of the rapid increase in the population of adults aged 65 years and older, extending the examination of…
Optimizing Management and Outcomes for Patients with Valvular Heart Disease
This project aims to characterize the management and outcomes of valvular heart disease for patients within Kaiser Permanente Northern California. It will include evaluation of surveillance patterns for moderate and severe valve disease, assessment of clinical outcomes in those with…
Comparative Trends in Heart Disease, Stroke, and All-Cause Mortality in the United States and a Large Integrated Healthcare Delivery System
Heart disease and stroke remain among the leading causes of death nationally. We examined whether differences in recent trends in heart disease, stroke, and total mortality exist in the United States and Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC), a large integrated…
Effect of Out-of-Pocket Cost on Medication Initiation, Adherence, and Persistence among Patients with Type 2 Diabetes: The Diabetes Study of Northern California (DISTANCE)
To estimate the effect of out-of-pocket (OOP) cost on nonadherence to classes of cardiometabolic medications among patients with diabetes. Electronic health records from a large, health care delivery system for 223,730 patients with diabetes prescribed 842,899 new cardiometabolic medications during…
A pilot study to assess the utility of five established variables to standardize exercise treadmill test reporting
The prognostic utility of 5 established variables (functional capacity, Duke treadmill score, chronotropic response to exercise, heart rate recovery, and premature ventricular contractions) together after routine exercise treadmill testing (ETT) has not been determined. We assessed the combined prognostic ability…
Value-Based Insurance Design Benefit Offsets Reductions In Medication Adherence Associated With Switch To Deductible Plan
Enrollment in high-deductible health plans is increasing out-of-pocket spending. But innovative plans that pair deductibles with value-based insurance designs can help preserve low-cost access to high-value treatments for patients by aligning coverage with clinical value. Among adults in high-deductible health…
Cardiac Metastasis of Nonvisceral Soft-tissue Leiomyosarcoma
Metastasis of a nonvisceral leiomyosarcoma to the heart is rare. We present the case of a man with a history of an upper extremity cancerous lesion that was completely resected with appropriate surveillance monitoring, which then metastasized to the heart…
Accuracy of the Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Risk Equation in a Large Contemporary, Multiethnic Population
The accuracy of the 2013 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) Pooled Cohort Risk Equation for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) events in contemporary and ethnically diverse populations is not well understood. The goal of this study was to evaluate…
Incidence and timing of potentially high-risk arrhythmias detected through long term continuous ambulatory electrocardiographic monitoring
Ambulatory electrocardiographic (ECG) monitoring is the standard to screen for high-risk arrhythmias. We evaluated the clinical utility of a novel, leadless electrode, single-patient-use ECG monitor that stores up to 14 days of a continuous recording to measure the burden and…
Metabolic Dyslipidemia and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease in 28,318 Adults With Diabetes Mellitus and Low-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol <100 mg/dl
The risk of future coronary heart disease (CHD) in subjects with diabetes and "metabolic dyslipidemia" (high triglyceride [TGs] and low high-density cholesterol levels) remains a matter of concern. Little is known regarding the risk of CHD for this phenotype with…
Association of spontaneous bleeding and myocardial infarction with long-term mortality after percutaneous coronary intervention
Platelet inhibition after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) reduces the risk of myocardial infarction (MI) but increases the risk of bleeding. MIs and bleeds during the index hospitalization for PCI are known to negatively affect long-term outcomes. The impact of spontaneous…
Thienopyridine use after coronary stenting in low income patients enrolled in medicare part D receiving maintenance dialysis
Coronary stenting in patients on dialysis has increased by nearly 50% over the past decade, despite heightened risks of associated stent thrombosis and bleeding relative to the general population. We examined clopidogrel, prasugrel or ticlopidine use after percutaneous coronary intervention…
Beta-blocker therapy and cardiac events among patients with newly diagnosed coronary heart disease
The effectiveness of beta-blockers for preventing cardiac events has been questioned for patients who have coronary heart disease (CHD) without a prior myocardial infarction (MI). The purpose of this study was to assess the association of beta-blockers with outcomes among…
Comparative Effectiveness of Clopidogrel in Medically Managed Patients with Unstable Angina and non-ST Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction
This study sought to examine the effectiveness of clopidogrel in real-world, medically managed patients with unstable angina (UA) or non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI). Although clinical trials have demonstrated the efficacy of clopidogrel to reduce cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality…
Use of Medications for Secondary Prevention After Coronary Bypass Surgery Compared With Percutaneous Coronary Intervention
OBJECTIVES: This study sought to compare use of evidence-based secondary preventive medications after coronary bypass surgery (CABG) and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). BACKGROUND: Use of cardioprotective medication after coronary revascularization has been inconsistent and relatively low in older studies. METHODS:…