Objective The objective was to identify sonographer perceptions of distractions and policies for ... more Objective The objective was to identify sonographer perceptions of distractions and policies for improving obstetric sonography examinations (OBUS). Materials and Methods A survey, with closed- and open-ended questions, was sent to OBUS practicing members of the Society of Diagnostic Medical Sonography (SDMS). Descriptive analyses, including frequency distributions overall and by various groups, were performed. Chi-square analyses were used to examine the relationships between categorical variables, including level of perceived distraction, and concordance with policies. Results Of the 3525 accessed e-mails, 807 responses were eligible for analysis. Over half (62%) of the respondents reported no observer policy. Sonographers reported strong agreement with observer policies and desired limits on observers. Policy disagreement themes included number of observers, children observers, patient satisfaction, and patient truthfulness. Most sonographers reported existence of (85%) and stron...
Genital herpes is an infection with herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) or type 2 (HSV-2), and is... more Genital herpes is an infection with herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) or type 2 (HSV-2), and is among the most common sexually transmitted diseases. We conducted a systematic review and aimed to answer the following clinical questions: What are the effects of interventions to prevent sexual transmission of herpes simplex virus? What are the effects of interventions to prevent transmission of herpes simplex virus from mother to neonate? What are the effects of antiviral treatment in people with a first episode of genital herpes? What are the effects of interventions to reduce the impact of recurrence? What are the effects of treatments in people with genital herpes and HIV? We searched: Medline, Embase, The Cochrane Library, and other important databases up to January 2010 (Clinical Evidence reviews are updated periodically, please check our website for the most up-to-date version of this review). We included harms alerts from relevant organisations such as the US Food and Drug Adm...
Objective To assess the relationship between cortisol slope, a biologic marker of stress, and pos... more Objective To assess the relationship between cortisol slope, a biologic marker of stress, and postpartum weight retention. Methods We included 696 women in a secondary analysis from a multi-site study conducted using principles of community-based participatory research to study multi-level sources of stress on pregnancy outcomes. As a stress marker, we included salivary cortisol slope; the rate of cortisol decline across the day. Pre-pregnancy weight and demographic data were obtained from the medical records. At 6Â months postpartum, patients were weighed and returned saliva samples. We built stepwise regression models to assess the effect of demographic variables, cortisol slope and cortisol covariates (wake time, tobacco use and breastfeeding) on postpartum weight retention. Results 45.5Â % of participants were African American, 29.2Â % White, and 25.3Â % Hispanic. Of the Hispanic women 62.5Â % were Spanish speaking and 37.5Â % were English speaking. In general, participants were young...
Genital herpes is an infection with herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) or type 2 (HSV-2), and is... more Genital herpes is an infection with herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) or type 2 (HSV-2), and is among the most common sexually transmitted diseases. METHODS AND OUTCOMES: We conducted a systematic review and aimed to answer the following clinical questions: What are the effects of interventions to prevent sexual transmission of herpes simplex virus? What are the effects of interventions to prevent transmission of herpes simplex virus from mother to neonate? What are the effects of antiviral treatment in people with a first episode of genital herpes? What are the effects of interventions to reduce the impact of recurrence? What are the effects of treatments in people with genital herpes and HIV? We searched: Medline, Embase, The Cochrane Library, and other important databases up to January 2010 (Clinical Evidence reviews are updated periodically, please check our website for the most up-to-date version of this review). We included harms alerts from relevant organisations such as th...
To explore risk factors for postpartum weight retention at 1 year after delivery in predominantly... more To explore risk factors for postpartum weight retention at 1 year after delivery in predominantly low-income women. Data were collected from 774 women with complete height and weight information from participants in the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Community Child Health Network, a national five-site, prospective cohort study. Participants were enrolled primarily in the hospitals immediately after delivery. Maternal interviews conducted at 1, 6, and 12 months postpartum identified risk factors for weight retention and included direct measurement of height and weight at 6 and 12 months. Logistic regression assessed the independent contribution of postpartum weight retention on obesity. Women had a mean prepregnancy weight of 161.5 lbs (body mass index [BMI] 27.7). Women gained a mean of 32 lbs while pregnant and had a 1-year mean postpartum weight of 172.6 lbs (BMI 29.4). Approximately 75% of women were heavier 1 year postpartum than they were prepregnancy, including 47.4% retaining more than 10 lbs and 24.2% more than 20 lbs. Women retaining at least 20 lbs were more often African American, younger, poor, less educated, or on pubic insurance. Race and socioeconomic disparities were associated with high prepregnancy BMI and excessive weight gain during pregnancy, associations that were attenuated by breastfeeding at 6 months and moderate exercise. Of the 39.8 with normal prepregnancy BMI, one third became overweight or obese 1 year postpartum. Postpartum weight retention is a significant contributor to the risk for obesity 1 year postpartum, including for women of normal weight prepregnancy. Postpartum, potentially modifiable behaviors may lower the risk. III.
American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 2014
The objective of the study was to assess the current status of ethics education in obstetrics-gyn... more The objective of the study was to assess the current status of ethics education in obstetrics-gynecology residency programs. A cross-sectional, web-based survey was designed in conjunction with a professional survey laboratory at the University of Chicago. The survey was piloted with a convenience sample of clinical medical ethics fellows to assess question content and clarity. The survey was deployed by e-mail to all obstetrics-gynecology residency program directors. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze participant responses. The University of Chicago's Institutional Review Board deemed this study exempt from institutional review board formal review. Of 242 eligible obstetrics-gynecology residency program directors, 118 (49%) completed the survey. Most respondents were from university-based programs (n = 78, 66%) that were not religiously affiliated (n = 98, 83%) and trained 4-6 residents per postgraduate year (n = 64, 70%). Although 50% of program directors (n = 60) reported having ethics as part of their core curriculum, most programs teach ethics in an unstructured manner. Fifty-seven percent of respondents (n = 66) stated their program dedicated 5 or fewer hours per year to ethics. The majority of program directors (n = 80, 73%) responded they would like more to a lot more ethics education and believed that ethics education should be required (n = 93, 85%) for residents to complete their training. Respondents identified that crowding in the curriculum was a significant barrier to increased ethics training (n = 50, 45%) and two-thirds (n = 74, 67%) reported a lack of faculty expertise as a moderate barrier to providing ethics education in the residency curriculum. This study found that a lack of structured curricula, inadequate faculty expertise, and limited time were important barriers for ethics education in obstetrics-gynecology programs across the nation. Despite these existing challenges, program directors have a strong interest in increasing ethics education in residency training. Therefore, additional resources are needed to assist program directors in enhancing resident ethics education.
Chronic stress contributes to preterm birth (PTB), through direct physiological mechanisms or beh... more Chronic stress contributes to preterm birth (PTB), through direct physiological mechanisms or behavioral pathways. This review identified interventions to prevent PTB through decreased maternal stress. Studies were grouped according to intervention: group prenatal care (11 studies), care coordination (8 studies), health insurance expansion (4 studies), expanded prenatal education/support in the clinic (8 studies), home visitation (9 studies), telephone contact (2 studies), or stress-reduction strategies (5 studies). Group prenatal care had the most evidence for PTB prevention. Comparative studies of PTB prevention through different models of prenatal care and maternal support, education, empowerment, stress-reduction, and coping strategies are needed.
To explore the potential of an integrated outpatient electronic health record (EHR) for preconcep... more To explore the potential of an integrated outpatient electronic health record (EHR) for preconception health optimization. An automated case-finding EHR-derived algorithm was designed to identify women of child-bearing age having outpatient encounters in an 85-site, integrated health system. The algorithm simultaneously cross-referenced multiple discrete data fields to identify selected preconception factors (obesity, hypertension, diabetes, teratogen use including ACE inhibitors, multivitamin supplementation, anemia, renal insufficiency, untreated sexually transmitted infection, HIV positivity, and tobacco, alcohol or illegal drug use). Surveys were mailed to a random sample of patients to obtain their self-reported health profiles for these same factors. Concordance was assessed between the algorithm output, survey results, and manual data abstraction. Between 8/2010-2/2012, 107,339 female outpatient visits were identified, from which 29,691 unique women were presumed to have child-bearing potential. 19,624 (66 %) and 8,652 (29 %) had 1 or ≥2 health factors, respectively while only 1,415 (5 %) had none. Using the patient survey results as a reference point, health-factor agreement was similar comparing the algorithm (85.8 %) and the chart abstraction (87.2 %) results. Incorrect or missing data entries in the EHR encounters were largely responsible for discordances observed. Preconception screening using an automated algorithm in a system-wide EHR identified a large group of women with potentially modifiable preconception health conditions. The issue most responsible for limiting algorithm performance was incomplete point of care documentation. Accurate data capture during patient encounters should be a focus for quality improvement, so that novel applications of system-wide data mining can be reliably implemented.
Postpartum haemorrhage is an infrequent but potentially life-threatening obstetrical emergency am... more Postpartum haemorrhage is an infrequent but potentially life-threatening obstetrical emergency amenable to simulation. An educational programme consisting of a lecture and high-fidelity simulation exercise was given to incoming obstetrics and gynaecology (OB) and family medicine (FM) residents. Residents reported pre- and post-intervention confidence scores on a 1-5 Likert scale and a subset completed a postpartum haemorrhage knowledge assessment. Residents reported significant improvements in confidence in parameters involved in diagnosis and management of postpartum haemorrhage. The postpartum haemorrhage test mean scores significantly increased (57.4 ± 9.6% vs 77.1 ± 7.9%, p < 0.01) and were significantly correlated to confidence scores (Spearman's coefficient of 0.651, p < 0.001). In conclusion, an education programme that incorporates high-fidelity simulation of postpartum haemorrhage improves the confidence and knowledge of incoming residents and appears to be an effective educational approach.
We sought to determine whether computerized physician order entry (CPOE) improves the induction a... more We sought to determine whether computerized physician order entry (CPOE) improves the induction agent turnaround time on the labor and delivery unit (L&D) compared with paper-based order entry (PBOE). We conducted a retrospective study of singleton, term pregnancies admitted to L&D for induction of labor. Outcomes of women who delivered 3 months before or 3 months after universal CPOE implementation were compared including induction agent turnaround time. The induction agent turnaround time was significantly shorter in the CPOE group ( N = 83) compared with PBOE group ( N = 71) [71 (range 8 to 411) versus 100 (2 to 442) minutes, P = 0.004]. There were no differences in cesarean section rate or length of hospital stay. After controlling for time of day of induction, induction agent, and type of order entry, CPOE continued to significantly decrease the induction agent turnaround time by 25 minutes ( P = 0.042). CPOE improved the process of induction of labor and efficiency of care of pregnant women.
The redundancy of routine laboratory tests in medicine has become increasingly more apparent in t... more The redundancy of routine laboratory tests in medicine has become increasingly more apparent in the age of electronic medical records (EMRs). The purpose of this study was to determine whether targeted screening strategies are more cost-effective than the current standard of universal screening of pregnant women for immunity to rubella. A decision analysis model was used to evaluate three strategies: universal screening, screening if a previous titer was not available, and use of an "alert" in the EMR to prompt screening. Cost, probability, and utility values were derived from the literature and institutional data from Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital. One-way sensitivity analyses were performed on all cost and probability values. The strategy of an EMR alert was most cost-effective, with a cost of $0.27 per quality-adjusted life years (QALY). The model was robust to all costs and probability values over their respective ranges. Although all strategies were cost-effective compared with traditional industry benchmarks of $50,000/QALY, the EMR alert strategy is most cost-effective. Implementing an EMR alert may lead to a more cost-effective approach to prenatal evaluation of rubella immunity.
Objective The objective was to identify sonographer perceptions of distractions and policies for ... more Objective The objective was to identify sonographer perceptions of distractions and policies for improving obstetric sonography examinations (OBUS). Materials and Methods A survey, with closed- and open-ended questions, was sent to OBUS practicing members of the Society of Diagnostic Medical Sonography (SDMS). Descriptive analyses, including frequency distributions overall and by various groups, were performed. Chi-square analyses were used to examine the relationships between categorical variables, including level of perceived distraction, and concordance with policies. Results Of the 3525 accessed e-mails, 807 responses were eligible for analysis. Over half (62%) of the respondents reported no observer policy. Sonographers reported strong agreement with observer policies and desired limits on observers. Policy disagreement themes included number of observers, children observers, patient satisfaction, and patient truthfulness. Most sonographers reported existence of (85%) and stron...
Genital herpes is an infection with herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) or type 2 (HSV-2), and is... more Genital herpes is an infection with herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) or type 2 (HSV-2), and is among the most common sexually transmitted diseases. We conducted a systematic review and aimed to answer the following clinical questions: What are the effects of interventions to prevent sexual transmission of herpes simplex virus? What are the effects of interventions to prevent transmission of herpes simplex virus from mother to neonate? What are the effects of antiviral treatment in people with a first episode of genital herpes? What are the effects of interventions to reduce the impact of recurrence? What are the effects of treatments in people with genital herpes and HIV? We searched: Medline, Embase, The Cochrane Library, and other important databases up to January 2010 (Clinical Evidence reviews are updated periodically, please check our website for the most up-to-date version of this review). We included harms alerts from relevant organisations such as the US Food and Drug Adm...
Objective To assess the relationship between cortisol slope, a biologic marker of stress, and pos... more Objective To assess the relationship between cortisol slope, a biologic marker of stress, and postpartum weight retention. Methods We included 696 women in a secondary analysis from a multi-site study conducted using principles of community-based participatory research to study multi-level sources of stress on pregnancy outcomes. As a stress marker, we included salivary cortisol slope; the rate of cortisol decline across the day. Pre-pregnancy weight and demographic data were obtained from the medical records. At 6Â months postpartum, patients were weighed and returned saliva samples. We built stepwise regression models to assess the effect of demographic variables, cortisol slope and cortisol covariates (wake time, tobacco use and breastfeeding) on postpartum weight retention. Results 45.5Â % of participants were African American, 29.2Â % White, and 25.3Â % Hispanic. Of the Hispanic women 62.5Â % were Spanish speaking and 37.5Â % were English speaking. In general, participants were young...
Genital herpes is an infection with herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) or type 2 (HSV-2), and is... more Genital herpes is an infection with herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) or type 2 (HSV-2), and is among the most common sexually transmitted diseases. METHODS AND OUTCOMES: We conducted a systematic review and aimed to answer the following clinical questions: What are the effects of interventions to prevent sexual transmission of herpes simplex virus? What are the effects of interventions to prevent transmission of herpes simplex virus from mother to neonate? What are the effects of antiviral treatment in people with a first episode of genital herpes? What are the effects of interventions to reduce the impact of recurrence? What are the effects of treatments in people with genital herpes and HIV? We searched: Medline, Embase, The Cochrane Library, and other important databases up to January 2010 (Clinical Evidence reviews are updated periodically, please check our website for the most up-to-date version of this review). We included harms alerts from relevant organisations such as th...
To explore risk factors for postpartum weight retention at 1 year after delivery in predominantly... more To explore risk factors for postpartum weight retention at 1 year after delivery in predominantly low-income women. Data were collected from 774 women with complete height and weight information from participants in the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Community Child Health Network, a national five-site, prospective cohort study. Participants were enrolled primarily in the hospitals immediately after delivery. Maternal interviews conducted at 1, 6, and 12 months postpartum identified risk factors for weight retention and included direct measurement of height and weight at 6 and 12 months. Logistic regression assessed the independent contribution of postpartum weight retention on obesity. Women had a mean prepregnancy weight of 161.5 lbs (body mass index [BMI] 27.7). Women gained a mean of 32 lbs while pregnant and had a 1-year mean postpartum weight of 172.6 lbs (BMI 29.4). Approximately 75% of women were heavier 1 year postpartum than they were prepregnancy, including 47.4% retaining more than 10 lbs and 24.2% more than 20 lbs. Women retaining at least 20 lbs were more often African American, younger, poor, less educated, or on pubic insurance. Race and socioeconomic disparities were associated with high prepregnancy BMI and excessive weight gain during pregnancy, associations that were attenuated by breastfeeding at 6 months and moderate exercise. Of the 39.8 with normal prepregnancy BMI, one third became overweight or obese 1 year postpartum. Postpartum weight retention is a significant contributor to the risk for obesity 1 year postpartum, including for women of normal weight prepregnancy. Postpartum, potentially modifiable behaviors may lower the risk. III.
American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 2014
The objective of the study was to assess the current status of ethics education in obstetrics-gyn... more The objective of the study was to assess the current status of ethics education in obstetrics-gynecology residency programs. A cross-sectional, web-based survey was designed in conjunction with a professional survey laboratory at the University of Chicago. The survey was piloted with a convenience sample of clinical medical ethics fellows to assess question content and clarity. The survey was deployed by e-mail to all obstetrics-gynecology residency program directors. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze participant responses. The University of Chicago's Institutional Review Board deemed this study exempt from institutional review board formal review. Of 242 eligible obstetrics-gynecology residency program directors, 118 (49%) completed the survey. Most respondents were from university-based programs (n = 78, 66%) that were not religiously affiliated (n = 98, 83%) and trained 4-6 residents per postgraduate year (n = 64, 70%). Although 50% of program directors (n = 60) reported having ethics as part of their core curriculum, most programs teach ethics in an unstructured manner. Fifty-seven percent of respondents (n = 66) stated their program dedicated 5 or fewer hours per year to ethics. The majority of program directors (n = 80, 73%) responded they would like more to a lot more ethics education and believed that ethics education should be required (n = 93, 85%) for residents to complete their training. Respondents identified that crowding in the curriculum was a significant barrier to increased ethics training (n = 50, 45%) and two-thirds (n = 74, 67%) reported a lack of faculty expertise as a moderate barrier to providing ethics education in the residency curriculum. This study found that a lack of structured curricula, inadequate faculty expertise, and limited time were important barriers for ethics education in obstetrics-gynecology programs across the nation. Despite these existing challenges, program directors have a strong interest in increasing ethics education in residency training. Therefore, additional resources are needed to assist program directors in enhancing resident ethics education.
Chronic stress contributes to preterm birth (PTB), through direct physiological mechanisms or beh... more Chronic stress contributes to preterm birth (PTB), through direct physiological mechanisms or behavioral pathways. This review identified interventions to prevent PTB through decreased maternal stress. Studies were grouped according to intervention: group prenatal care (11 studies), care coordination (8 studies), health insurance expansion (4 studies), expanded prenatal education/support in the clinic (8 studies), home visitation (9 studies), telephone contact (2 studies), or stress-reduction strategies (5 studies). Group prenatal care had the most evidence for PTB prevention. Comparative studies of PTB prevention through different models of prenatal care and maternal support, education, empowerment, stress-reduction, and coping strategies are needed.
To explore the potential of an integrated outpatient electronic health record (EHR) for preconcep... more To explore the potential of an integrated outpatient electronic health record (EHR) for preconception health optimization. An automated case-finding EHR-derived algorithm was designed to identify women of child-bearing age having outpatient encounters in an 85-site, integrated health system. The algorithm simultaneously cross-referenced multiple discrete data fields to identify selected preconception factors (obesity, hypertension, diabetes, teratogen use including ACE inhibitors, multivitamin supplementation, anemia, renal insufficiency, untreated sexually transmitted infection, HIV positivity, and tobacco, alcohol or illegal drug use). Surveys were mailed to a random sample of patients to obtain their self-reported health profiles for these same factors. Concordance was assessed between the algorithm output, survey results, and manual data abstraction. Between 8/2010-2/2012, 107,339 female outpatient visits were identified, from which 29,691 unique women were presumed to have child-bearing potential. 19,624 (66 %) and 8,652 (29 %) had 1 or ≥2 health factors, respectively while only 1,415 (5 %) had none. Using the patient survey results as a reference point, health-factor agreement was similar comparing the algorithm (85.8 %) and the chart abstraction (87.2 %) results. Incorrect or missing data entries in the EHR encounters were largely responsible for discordances observed. Preconception screening using an automated algorithm in a system-wide EHR identified a large group of women with potentially modifiable preconception health conditions. The issue most responsible for limiting algorithm performance was incomplete point of care documentation. Accurate data capture during patient encounters should be a focus for quality improvement, so that novel applications of system-wide data mining can be reliably implemented.
Postpartum haemorrhage is an infrequent but potentially life-threatening obstetrical emergency am... more Postpartum haemorrhage is an infrequent but potentially life-threatening obstetrical emergency amenable to simulation. An educational programme consisting of a lecture and high-fidelity simulation exercise was given to incoming obstetrics and gynaecology (OB) and family medicine (FM) residents. Residents reported pre- and post-intervention confidence scores on a 1-5 Likert scale and a subset completed a postpartum haemorrhage knowledge assessment. Residents reported significant improvements in confidence in parameters involved in diagnosis and management of postpartum haemorrhage. The postpartum haemorrhage test mean scores significantly increased (57.4 ± 9.6% vs 77.1 ± 7.9%, p < 0.01) and were significantly correlated to confidence scores (Spearman's coefficient of 0.651, p < 0.001). In conclusion, an education programme that incorporates high-fidelity simulation of postpartum haemorrhage improves the confidence and knowledge of incoming residents and appears to be an effective educational approach.
We sought to determine whether computerized physician order entry (CPOE) improves the induction a... more We sought to determine whether computerized physician order entry (CPOE) improves the induction agent turnaround time on the labor and delivery unit (L&D) compared with paper-based order entry (PBOE). We conducted a retrospective study of singleton, term pregnancies admitted to L&D for induction of labor. Outcomes of women who delivered 3 months before or 3 months after universal CPOE implementation were compared including induction agent turnaround time. The induction agent turnaround time was significantly shorter in the CPOE group ( N = 83) compared with PBOE group ( N = 71) [71 (range 8 to 411) versus 100 (2 to 442) minutes, P = 0.004]. There were no differences in cesarean section rate or length of hospital stay. After controlling for time of day of induction, induction agent, and type of order entry, CPOE continued to significantly decrease the induction agent turnaround time by 25 minutes ( P = 0.042). CPOE improved the process of induction of labor and efficiency of care of pregnant women.
The redundancy of routine laboratory tests in medicine has become increasingly more apparent in t... more The redundancy of routine laboratory tests in medicine has become increasingly more apparent in the age of electronic medical records (EMRs). The purpose of this study was to determine whether targeted screening strategies are more cost-effective than the current standard of universal screening of pregnant women for immunity to rubella. A decision analysis model was used to evaluate three strategies: universal screening, screening if a previous titer was not available, and use of an "alert" in the EMR to prompt screening. Cost, probability, and utility values were derived from the literature and institutional data from Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital. One-way sensitivity analyses were performed on all cost and probability values. The strategy of an EMR alert was most cost-effective, with a cost of $0.27 per quality-adjusted life years (QALY). The model was robust to all costs and probability values over their respective ranges. Although all strategies were cost-effective compared with traditional industry benchmarks of $50,000/QALY, the EMR alert strategy is most cost-effective. Implementing an EMR alert may lead to a more cost-effective approach to prenatal evaluation of rubella immunity.
Uploads
Papers by Heather Straub