Introduction: Medication hoarding describes a persistent difficulty of discarding or parting with medications that are no longer useful. This behavior can result in mis-dosing and inappropriate sharing, leading to adverse consequences (Sorenson, 2005). Previous research has found correlations between medication savings behavior, hoarding, and medication adherence (Warren et al., 2019; VanDyke et al., 2018), but […]

Introduction: Patients receiving a lower extremity joint replacement (LEJR) are commonly prescribed physical therapy (PT) to address pain, range of motion, and function. As LEJRs are more commonly performed in an outpatient setting, particularly in a younger population, patients are less likely to receive inpatient PT, potentially resulting in increased utilization of community-based (home health […]

Introduction: The completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003, a monumental scientific achievement that provided the first sequence of the human genome, marked a significant milestone in healthcare. This project laid the foundation for precision medicine, a healthcare approach that considers an individual’s genetic makeup and lifestyle factors in their treatment plans. As precision […]

Introduction: Conversations between hospital board members, middle managers, and frontline staff often revolve around performance metrics, e.g., wait times and hospital-acquired infection rates. Where presentations focus on two-point comparisons (before/after) or targets (e.g., visualized with Red-Amber-Green (RAG) codes), initiatives could chase statistical noise rather than sound statistical signals of poor or superior performance. Statistical process […]

Introduction: Multiple myeloma (MM) is an incurable hematological cancer, preceded by an asymptomatic pre-malignant condition – monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS). Racial disparities have been demonstrated in every stage of MM, with non-Hispanic black (NHB) populations experiencing worse outcomes compared to their non-Hispanic white (NHW) counterparts. To understand and quantify racial disparities, we constructed […]

Introduction: Tracheostomy is a common procedure that is associated with various complications ranging from minor hemorrhages to catastrophic events. An estimated 85,000 tracheostomies were performed per year between 2002-2017 in the United States, but despite the high frequency of tracheostomy procedures, the last study to investigate risk factors associated with tracheostomy complications was performed on […]

Introduction: Offering medication to treat opioid use disorder (MOUD) together with contraception has the potential to help treatment-seeking people achieve healthy interpregnancy intervals. We used multistate administrative claims to compute rates of contraception utilization in postpartum reproductive-age people starting buprenorphine (BUP) or psychosocial treatment without medication (PSY). Methods: In this retrospective cohort study, we analyzed […]