Author Interviews, COVID -19 Coronavirus, JAMA / 28.05.2020
Study Finds Stay-at-Home Orders Reduced Hospitalizations
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_54349" align="alignleft" width="142"] Dr. Soumya Sen[/caption]
Soumya Sen PhD
McKnight Presidential Fellow
Mary & Jim Lawrence Fellow of Carlson School
Director of Research, MIS Research Center
Associate Professor, Information & Decision Sciences
Carlson School of Management
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: As the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded across the United States, one of the greatest barriers to understanding the extent of the problem was the lack of reliable and consistent data. Some of the metrics being reported, such as case count and death, are insufficient for hospital capacity planning. Case count is a conservative estimate of the actual number of infected individuals in the absence of community-wide serologic testing, while death count is a lagging metric and insufficient for proactive hospital capacity planning.
A more valuable metric for assessing the effects of public health interventions on the health care infrastructure is hospitalizations. Therefore, the Medical Industry Leadership Institute (MILI) and the Management Information Systems Research Center (MISRC) at the Carlson School of Management launched the COVID-19 hospitalization tracking project in March to consistently track and report daily hospitalizations from all reporting states. Tracking daily hospitalization data is a major step forward in quantifying the current impact on local hospital systems, modeling and forecasting future utilization needs, and tracking the rate of change in the disease severity. It is also useful for understanding the role of health policy interventions in slowing or reducing the impact of the pandemic.
Dr. Soumya Sen[/caption]
Soumya Sen PhD
McKnight Presidential Fellow
Mary & Jim Lawrence Fellow of Carlson School
Director of Research, MIS Research Center
Associate Professor, Information & Decision Sciences
Carlson School of Management
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: As the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded across the United States, one of the greatest barriers to understanding the extent of the problem was the lack of reliable and consistent data. Some of the metrics being reported, such as case count and death, are insufficient for hospital capacity planning. Case count is a conservative estimate of the actual number of infected individuals in the absence of community-wide serologic testing, while death count is a lagging metric and insufficient for proactive hospital capacity planning.
A more valuable metric for assessing the effects of public health interventions on the health care infrastructure is hospitalizations. Therefore, the Medical Industry Leadership Institute (MILI) and the Management Information Systems Research Center (MISRC) at the Carlson School of Management launched the COVID-19 hospitalization tracking project in March to consistently track and report daily hospitalizations from all reporting states. Tracking daily hospitalization data is a major step forward in quantifying the current impact on local hospital systems, modeling and forecasting future utilization needs, and tracking the rate of change in the disease severity. It is also useful for understanding the role of health policy interventions in slowing or reducing the impact of the pandemic.
Dr. Filbey[/caption]
Francesca Filbey, PhD
Associate Provost and Professor of Cognition and Neuroscience
Bert Moore Chair
The University of Texas at Dallas
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Studies have reported differences in how males and females respond to cannabis and how they develop problems related to cannabis use. We sought to determine whether craving may underlie this difference in male and female cannabis users.
Dr. Brooks[/caption]
Dr. Kelly Brooks PhD
Research Officer
QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
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Dr. Cavanaugh[/caption]
Alyson Cavanaugh, PT, PhD
Joint Doctoral Program in Epidemiology
University of California, San Diego/ San Diego State University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: More than 700,000 total knee replacements are performed annually in the United States, but there is a racial disparity in outcomes after the surgery. If the knee replacement procedure is considered a highly effective treatment, why don't black women present with the same outcomes as whites?
Physical function when going into surgery has a large impact on the potential functional outcomes after surgery. Our hypothesis was that black women were presenting to surgery with poorer physical function, which was contributing to poorer functional outcomes after surgery.
Dr. Van der Pol[/caption]
Barbara Van Der Pol, PhD, MPH
President, American STD Association
President-Elect, International Society fo STD Research
Professor of Medicine & Public Health
Director, STD Diagnostics Lab
Director, UAB STD Clinical Research Organization
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Birmingham, AL 35294
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: For many decades, public health programs focused on control and prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STI) have relied on lab based tests that required a 1-day to 1-week wait for test results. Efforts to shorten the duration of infection lead to treating at the time of the clinic visit based on the association between certain clinical signs or symptoms and the likelihood of infection.
Unfortunately, more than ½ of infected persons do not have signs or symptoms so they receive no treatment until test results are available. Thus, a test that could be performed at the clinical site with a limited wait time would improve the accuracy of treatment and shorten the duration of infection. Such a strategy will hopefully reduce the number of return clinic visits, the possibility of transmission, and the potential for consequences of untreated infection such as infertility. 
Dr. Tandon[/caption]
Pooja S. Tandon, MD, MPH
Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development
Seattle Children's Research Institute
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Cell phone use is common among middle and high school students, yet we do not have an understanding of school cell phone policies and practices in the U.S. We conducted a survey of public schools serving grades 6-12. The survey sent to over 1,100 school principals, representing a national sample of schools across the U.S., asked questions about the presence of a cell phone policy for students and staff and restrictions on phone use. Additional questions addressed consequences of policy violation, the use of cell phones for curricular activities and principals’ attitudes toward cell phone policies.
Marco Taglietti, M.D.
President and Chief Executive Officer
SCYNEXIS Inc
Dr. Taglietti discusses SCYNEXIS’ announcement of positive results from its second Phase 3 study investigating the safety and efficacy of oral ibrexafungerp as a treatment for vaginal yeast infection.
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