Chairing the internal medicine department- analysis of current state and future trends in Israel

Background

Professional skills and academic records of the highest degree are essential requirements for the chairmanship of internal medicine departments. Whether the new generation and future successors of Israeli chairmen is endowed with these attributes is not known.

Purpose

To determine whether there is a lack of future suitable successors for the current heads of internal medicine departments in Israel and to compare the demographic, academic and professional characteristics of the older and newer generations of department heads.

Methods

An online anonymous questionnaire was nationally distributed during 2016 to all active heads of internal medicine departments in Israel (n?=?101). First round was followed by two runs of personal phone calls to promote participation.

Results

Sixty-seven (67%) of chairmen responded. The vast majority of current chairs of internal medicine departments are males (N?=?59, 88%) over 50 years of age (N?=?58, 86%) with established academic background with lecturer degree or higher (N?=?57, 85%).Only 19 (28%) of current heads assigned a future successor. Comparison of chairmen who did and did not assigned successors demonstrated that assignment of successors was associated with higher academic status (P?<?0.02) and longer chairmanship (p?<?0.01) but not with mean age of current chairmen (p?<?0.08). Nevertheless, most assignments (55%) were done by chairmen in the 61 to 67 years age group. As compared to current chairmen, the designated successors have lesser academic status (p?<?0.01) and are characterized by a higher female prevalence (P?<?0.03).

Conclusions

Significant demographic, professional and academic differences exist between the current chairs of internal medicine departments in Israeli hospitals and their future successors. This underscores the need for reassessment of the availability and requirements of this crucial position.

     

A Multi-site In-depth Evaluation of the Quanterix Simoa from a User’s Perspective

An in-depth evaluation of the Quanterix© Simoa? platform was undertaken by scientists from the AAPS Emerging Technologies Focus Group to determine the overall performance of the technology as well as provide guidance to future users. In order to test the platform in a non-GLP bioanalytical setting, a cross-site evaluation of the Quanterix IL-6 biomarker kit was performed. Parameters tested during this evaluation included sensitivity, accuracy and precision, and parallelism in human serum from normal individuals. The results demonstrated improved sensitivity compared to the claimed sensitivity of other commercially available IL-6 kits and showed excellent site-to-site reproducibility. Observed issues included difficulties with system reliability and a lack of parallelism and specificity in a subset of samples. Overall, these results demonstrate that while there are challenges to the Simoa platform this technology offers automation capabilities and excellent sensitivity that enhance bioanalysis especially of low-abundance analytes.     

A Rights-Based Approach for Service Providers to Measure the Quality of Life of Children with a Disability

Background

This paper identifies the best instruments for service providers to measure the quality of life (QoL) of children with a disability, with a focus on their alignment with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with a Disability (CRPD).

Use of a matching algorithm to evaluate hospital coronary artery bypass grafting performance as an alternative to conventional risk adjustment

BACKGROUND: Although public reporting of hospital and physician performance is a cornerstone of the effort to improve health care quality, the optimal approach to risk adjustment is unknown. OBJECTIVE: We sought to assess hospital quality using a matching algorithm based on a generalized distance metric and to compare this approach to the more traditional regression-based approach. DESIGN/ DATA SOURCE: This was a retrospective study using the New York State (NYS) Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery Reporting System (CSRS), focusing on all patients undergoing isolated CABG surgery in NYS who were discharged in 1999 (18,116 patients). Patients from specific hospital were matched to a control group using the Mahalanobis distance. The hospitals' expected mortality rate was calculated in 2 ways: (1) as the mortality rate of the control group or (2) as the mortality rate predicted by the NYS CABG model. Hospitals whose observed mortality rate was significantly different from their expected mortality rate (OE difference) were defined as quality outliers. RESULTS: The 2 risk-adjustment methodologies disagreed on the outlier status of 4 of the 33 hospitals. Kappa analysis demonstrated substantial agreement between these 2 methods for identifying quality outliers: kappa = 0.61. There was excellent agreement between the point estimates of the OE difference obtained using these 2 risk adjustment methodologies. CONCLUSION: Basing outcome assessment on either matching or regression modeling yielded similar findings on hospital ranking but only moderate level of agreement on hospital quality. The use of matching may enhance the transparency and acceptance of outcome report cards by hospitals and physicians.     

Impact of smoking on outcomes following knee and shoulder arthroscopy

European Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery & Traumatology - The purpose of this study is to evaluate any association between preoperative smoking and perioperative and early postoperative...