Objectives To quantify mortality rates for patients successfully treated for hepatitis C in the era of interferon-free, direct acting antivirals and compare these rates with those of the general population.
Design Population based cohort study.
Setting British Columbia, Scotland, and England (England cohort consists of patients with cirrhosis only).
Participants 21 790 people who were successfully treated for hepatitis C in the era of interferon-free antivirals (2014-19). Participants were divided into three liver disease severity groups: people without cirrhosis (pre-cirrhosis), those with compensated cirrhosis, and those with end stage liver disease. Follow-up started 12 weeks after antiviral treatment completion and ended on date of death or 31 December 2019.
Main outcome measures Crude and age-sex standardised mortality rates, and standardised mortality ratio comparing the number of deaths with that of the general population, adjusting for age, sex, and year. Poisson regressi
Background: Uptake of virtual care increased substantially during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether a shift from in-person to virtual visits by primary care physicians was associated with increased use of emergency departments among their enrolled patients.
Methods: We conducted an observational study of monthly virtual visits and emergency department visits from Apr. 1, 2020, to Mar. 31, 2021, using administrative data from Ontario, Canada. We used multivariable regression analysis to estimate the association between the proportion of a physician’s visits that were delivered virtually and the number of emergency department visits among their enrolled patients.
Results: The proportion of virtual visits was higher among female, younger and urban physicians, and the number of emergency department visits was lower among patients of female and urban physicians. In an unadjusted analysis, a 1% increase in a physician’s proportion of
Findings from a recent study highlight the need for appropriate resource planning to maintain high-quality stroke care and optimize patient outcomes, said one of the researchers.
In a retrospective cohort study from Canada, Dr Mary Kennedy and colleagues explore the effect of discontinuation and tapering of prescribed opioids on risk of overdose among people on long-term opioid therapy for pain with and without opioid use disorder.