Saskatchewan Health

About: Saskatchewan Health is a government organization based out in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Health care. The organization has 442 authors who have published 489 publications receiving 7728 citations.

A national collaborative to spread and scale paramedics providing palliative care in Canada: Breaking down silos is essential to success

Abstract: A national collaborative has been launched in Canada to spread and scale up the Paramedics Providing Palliative Care model. This builds on the knowledge that paramedics in the 9-1-1 (emergency/unsc...

Hospital admissions and mortality due to complications of injection drug use in two hospitals in Regina, Canada: retrospective chart review

Abstract: Infectious complications of injection drug use (IDU) often require lengthy inpatient treatment. Our objective was to identify the number of admissions related to IDU in Regina, Canada, as well as describe patient demographics and comorbidities, yearly mortality, readmission rate, and cumulative cost of these hospitalizations between January 1 and December 31, 2018. Additionally, we sought to identify factors that increased risk of death or readmission. This study is a retrospective chart review conducted at the two hospitals in Regina. Eligible study cases were identified by querying the discharge database for predetermined International Classification of Diseases code combinations. Electronic medical records were reviewed to assess whether each admission met inclusion criteria, and hospitalization and patient data were subsequently extracted for all included admissions. Mortality data were gleaned from hospital and Ministry of Health databases. Data were analyzed using Excel and IBM SPSS Statistics to identify common comorbidities, admission diagnoses, and costs, as well as to compare patients with a single admission during the study period to those with multiple admissions. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify the relationship between individual variables and in- and out-of-hospital annual mortality. One hundred and forty-nine admissions were included, with 102 unique patients identified. Common comorbidities included hepatitis C (47%), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) (25%), and comorbid psychiatric disorders (19%). In 23% of all admissions, patients left hospital prior to treatment completion, and 27% of patients experienced multiple admissions. Female patients and those with chronic pain were more likely to be readmitted (p = 0.024 and p = 0.029, respectively). Patients admitted with infective endocarditis were more likely to die during hospitalization (p = 0.0001). The overall mortality was 15% in our cohort. The estimated cumulative cost of inpatient treatment of complications of IDU in Regina was $3.7 million CAD in 2018. Patients with history of IDU and hospital admission experience high mortality rates in Regina, a city with paucity of inpatient supports for persons who use injection drugs. Needle syringe programs, opioid agonist therapy, and safe consumption sites have been shown to improve outcomes as well as reduce healthcare costs for this patient population. We will use our findings to advocate for increased access to these harm reduction strategies in Regina, particularly for inpatients.

Medication adherence in multiple sclerosis as a potential model for other chronic diseases: a population-based cohort study.

Abstract: Objective To determine whether better medication adherence in multiple sclerosis (MS) might be due to specialised disease-modifying drug (DMD) support programmes by: (1) establishing higher adherence in MS than in other chronic diseases and (2) determining if higher adherence is associated with patient-specific or treatment-specific factors Design Retrospective cohort study with data from 1 January 1996 to 31 December 2015 Setting Population-based health administrative data from three Canadian provinces Participants Individual cohorts were created using validated case definitions for MS, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease (PD) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) Subjects were included if they received ≥1 dispensation for a disease-related drug between 1 January 1997 and 31 December 2014 Main outcome measure(s) Proportion of subjects with optimal adherence (≥80%) measured by the medication possession ratio 1 year after the index date (first dispensation of disease-related drug) Results 126 478 subjects were included in the primary analysis (MS, n=6271; epilepsy, n=55 739; PD, n=21 304; RA, n=43 164) Subjects with epilepsy (adjusted OR, aOR 029; 95% CI 019 to 045), PD (aOR 042; 95% CI 029 to 063) or RA (aOR 026; 95% CI 019 to 035) were less likely to have optimal 1-year adherence compared with subjects with MS Within the MS cohort, adherence was higher for DMD than for chronic-use non-MS medications, and no consistent patient-related predictors of adherence were observed across all four non-MS medication classes, including having optimal adherence to DMD Conclusions Subjects with MS were significantly more likely to have optimal 1-year adherence than subjects with epilepsy, RA and PD, and optimal adherence appears related to treatment-specific factors rather than patient-related factors This supports the hypothesis that higher adherence to the MS DMDs could be due to the specialised support programmes; these programmes may serve as a model for use in other chronic conditions

University of Saskatchewan Radiology Courseware (USRC): An Assessment of Its Utility for Teaching Diagnostic Imaging in the Medical School Curriculum

Abstract: Problem: We have found it very challenging to integrate images from our radiology digital imaging repository into the curriculum of our local medical school. Thus, it has been difficult to convey important knowledge related to viewing and interpreting diagnostic radiology images. We sought to determine if we could create a solution for this problem and evaluate whether students exposed to this solution were able to learn imaging concepts pertinent to medical practice. Intervention: We developed University of Saskatchewan Radiology Courseware (USRC), a novel interactive web application that enables preclinical medical students to acquire image interpretation skills fundamental to clinical practice. This web application reformats content stored in Medical Imaging Resource Center teaching cases for BlackBoard Learn™, a popular learning management system. We have deployed this solution for 2 successive years in a 1st-year basic sciences medical school course at the College of Medicine, University of Saskatche...