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Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf 2021 Apr 2. Epub 2021 Apr 2.

Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, United States.

The US Food and Drug Administration's Sentinel System was established in 2009 to use routinely collected electronic health data for improving the national capability to assess post-market medical product safety. Over more than a decade, Sentinel has become an integral part of FDA's surveillance capabilities and has been used to conduct analyses that have contributed to regulatory decisions. FDA's role in the COVID-19 pandemic response has necessitated an expansion and enhancement of Sentinel. Read More

Emerg Infect Dis 2021 Mar;27(3):982-985

Nontuberculous mycobacteria infection is increasing in incidence and can lead to chronic, debilitating pulmonary disease. We investigated the accuracy of diagnosis code-based nontuberculous mycobacteria lung disease claims among Medicare beneficiaries in the United States. We observed that these claims have moderate validity, but given their low sensitivity, incidence might be underestimated. Read More

Chest 2021 Jan 19. Epub 2021 Jan 19.

Department of Research and Evaluation, Kaiser Permanente Southern California, Pasadena, CA. Electronic address:

Background: Multiple morbidity is the norm in advanced COPD and contributes to high symptom burden and worse outcomes.

Research Question: Can distinct comorbidity profiles be identified and validated in a community-based sample of patients with COPD from a large integrated health-care system using a standard, commonly used diagnostic code-based comorbidity index and downstream 2-year health-care use data?

Study Design And Methods: In this retrospective cohort study, we used latent class analysis (LCA) to identify comorbidity profiles in a population-based sample of 91,453 patients with a COPD diagnosis between 2011 and 2015. We included specific comorbid conditions from the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) and accounted for variation in underlying prevalence of different comorbidities across the three study sites. Read More

Ann Am Thorac Soc 2021 Jan 21. Epub 2021 Jan 21.

Oregon Health & Science University, 6684, OHSU-PSU School of Public Health, Portland, Oregon, United States.

N Z Med J 2021 01 15;134(1528):10-25. Epub 2021 Jan 15.

Consultant and Health Economist, recently retired from University of Otago Medical School.

Aim: To explore the population-at-risk and potential cost of a sepsis episode in New Zealand.

Method: Retrospective analysis of the National Minimum Data Set using two code-based algorithms selecting (i) an inclusive cohort of hospitalised patients diagnosed with a 'major infection' with the potential to cause sepsis and (ii) a restricted subset of these patients with a high likelihood of clinical sepsis based on the presence of both a primary admission diagnosis of infection and at least one sepsis-associated organ failure.

Results: In 2016, 24% of all inpatient episodes were associated with diagnosis of a major infection. Read More