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Biomedical subjects

P A Ebert

Publications and source records attributed to P A Ebert.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1994

The importance of data in improving practice: effective clinical use of outcomes data.

We are in a transition stage from the widespread use of clinical judgment to the use of risk-adjusted outcomes data for clinical decision-making and quality assessment and improvement. The ultimate long-term goal for the use of predicted outcomes is to be able to inform patients at the earliest state of their symptoms as to the anticipated course of their disease and the results of alternative therapies. For outcomes analyses to be routinely used in clinical practice, they must be formulated succinctly. Because a small number of adverse outcomes may make a big difference in outcome statistics over a short period such as a year, it is important that purchasers of health services take a longer-term view. The demand for public disclosure of every aspect of medical therapy is on the increase, and it is likely that each physician, hospital, specialty group, and so on, is likely to receive some type of report card in the near future. However, I believe it will be very difficult to educate the public, given the enthusiasm we currently see in the press for producing headlines that are not always supported by the facts in the article. Although the importance of outcomes data is unquestioned, it is important to remember that our methods for utilizing the data are still somewhat infantile. Therefore, it is important for us as a profession to question the accuracy and the interpretations of outcomes data.

Cardiac Surgical Procedures↗
PubMed1990

Methods for evaluation of medical care other than credentialing. Cost, experience, and results.

Unfortunately, the majority of studies proposed to evaluate a physician's capabilities, such as effectiveness programs, outcome research, and hospital evaluation, do not focus directly on the individual practitioner. The certifying process, although imperfect, still offers the best method of evaluation. The other evaluation methods will need additional refinement to be able to individually analyze a specific physician's performance and determine whether he or she is truly providing the highest quality care. Physicians are being asked to document the effectiveness of their clinical decision making. On the surface this seems so simple, and in some areas where the outcome is either life or death or a specific yes or no type of answer, many have the capability to come forth with some realistic documentation. However, today's society is focused on health and the perfect outcome, and many nonlife-threatening therapies are evaluated by a patient's unrealistic expectation. Thus, the same result may be interpreted differently in one geographic area or by patients with different expectations. The biggest mistake would be to believe that outcome studies can be used to reduce cost. There may be some initial reduction or delays in treatment that suggest an immediate reduction of cost, the so-called sentinel effect, but no information or evidence indicates that these effects can be expanded without actually reducing needed health care services. In fact, the delays or obstruction to entering the health-care system experienced by many individuals often lead to more costly and less effective care with suboptimal results.

Costs and Cost Analysis↗
PubMed1989

Aortic allografts: reconstruction of right ventricle-pulmonary artery continuity.

The use of aortic allografts in the repair of congenital cardiac lesions has increased as a result of both the advent of cryopreservation and the effects of increased donor availability secondary to infant transplantation. During the period 1986 through 1987, 38 cryopreserved aortic allografts were placed for right ventricle-pulmonary artery discontinuity. Size of the allografts ranged from 11 to 26 mm (mean size, 19 mm), and age of the patients ranged from 6 weeks to 26 years (mean age, 5 years). Twenty-one patients had primary placement of aortic allografts, and 17 underwent replacement of previous conduits. There were 5 hospital deaths (13%) overall, only 1 among the 10 patients younger than 6 months of age with truncus arteriosus, and none among the 17 patients having conduit replacement. A large conduit could be placed with a low incidence (10.5%) of postoperative hemorrhage related to the conduit. The aortic allograft is our conduit of choice for both conduit replacement and primary repair of right ventricle-pulmonary artery discontinuity.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Risk Factors for Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery.

The Society of Thoracic Surgeons remains greatly concerned about the use of raw mortality data as the sole measure to determine quality of care following coronary artery bypass surgery. Use of such data without consideration of risk factors that are predictors of hospital mortality and of other indices of quality of care is inappropriate and misleading and may adversely affect the care of the high-risk cardiac surgical patient. The Society is committed to the principle of providing the public with accurate information regarding the conduct of coronary artery surgery. However, it believes that the data provided by HCFA do not provide this information and should not be used as the sole index of quality of care following coronary artery bypass surgery.

Coronary Artery Bypass↗
PubMed1988

The fate of the 12 mm porcine valved conduit from the right ventricle to the pulmonary artery. A ten-year experience.

The 12 mm Dacron conduit containing a porcine valve is the smallest valved conduit manufactured and is used in the youngest infants with the most diminutive pulmonary arterial system. The outcome of patients with such a conduit is unknown. Between 1975 and 1985 there were 49 hospital survivors after placement of a 12 mm extracardiac valved conduit from the right ventricle to the pulmonary artery. Follow-up is available in 42 patients, aged 1 to 16 months (mean 3.5) and weighing 2.5 to 8.7 kg (mean 3.8). Twenty-eight patients (67%) have undergone subsequent conduit replacement, and 11 (26%) are alive and asymptomatic with a mean follow-up of 56 months. There were three late deaths. The interval between implantation and conduit change was 4.5 to 101 months (mean 44), allowing a weight gain of 2.7 to 23 kg (mean 10.4) before reoperation at age 12 to 117 months (mean 49). Despite elevated right ventricular pressures equaling systemic values, 37% of these patients were clinically asymptomatic. The gradient across the 12 mm valved conduit before explantation ranged from 30 to 173 torr (mean 83) with an almost equal predilection for stenosis at the proximal anastomosis, valve, conduit, distal anastomosis, and main pulmonary artery. The intervening pulmonary artery growth determined the size of the replacement conduit, 14 to 25 mm (mean 16), and was the main factor influencing the results of reoperation. This study demonstrates that the 12 mm porcine valve-containing conduit affords palliation in this difficult subset of patients with the smallest pulmonary arterial tree.

Bioprosthesis↗
PubMed1988

The Mustard procedure in infants (less than 100 days of age). Ten-year follow-up.

Surgical treatment of transposition of the great arteries and intact ventricular septum has changed markedly in the past 10 years. However, long-term follow-up on new approaches is not available. In a unique group of patients, operated on in the first 100 days of life with the Mustard procedure, such follow-up is available, and the results of these true infant repairs represent a benchmark against which subsequent techniques applied to infants should be compared. During the period of 1975 to 1980, 36 infants, less than 100 days of age, who had transposition of the great arteries and intact ventricular septum, underwent Mustard repair at the University of California, San Francisco. Ages ranged from 4 to 98 days (mean 46 days) and weights from 2.3 to 6.6 kg (mean 3.5 kg). There were no early deaths, and late follow-up was available from 8 to 13 years (mean 10 years). The late survival rate was 97% (mean 10 years). There was a 62% rhythm disturbance-free survival rate, 89% reoperation-free survival rate, and 91% pacemaker-free survival rate. Echocardiographic evaluation revealed obstruction of the superior vena cava in eight patients, tricuspid insufficiency in four, right ventricular dysfunction in two, and left ventricular outflow tract obstruction in three. The Mustard procedure, performed in the first 100 days of life, results in a high rate of survival (early 100% and late 97%, at a mean of 10 years) and a low incidence of late complications against which other techniques of infant repair should be compared.

Echocardiography↗