Latest news with #acuteCare
CTV News
16-05-2025
- Health
- CTV News
Province providing additional $10M towards new hospital in Waterloo
WRHN @ Midtown was seen on King Street West in Kitchener on April 8, 2025. (Dan Lauckner/CTV News) The provincial government has given the Waterloo Regional Health Network (WRHN) a $10 million planning grant to build its new acute care hospital in Waterloo. That's in addition to the $5 million planning grant previously announced in April 2022. WHRN said the funding will help with their ongoing work at the hospital 's site, located on a vacant part of the University of Waterloo's north campus. The hospital was officially announced in July 2022 with the promise of adding 400 acute care beds to the region. 'Each year, over 700,000 patients receive care at WRHN, and this number continues to grow. Our current facilities were not designed to support the current and increasing demand,' Dr. Peter Potts, the chief of staff at WRHN, said in a media release. 'The government's recent announcement is a strong sign of support for the patients we serve… This will help more patients get care closer to home, reduce wait times and improve overall health outcomes and patient experiences.' WRHN said the new hospital is expected to open in 2035.
Medscape
09-05-2025
- Health
- Medscape
Cancer Pain Most Common Symptom Before Acute Care Visits
Pain, nausea, and vomiting were the most frequently documented symptoms preceding unplanned acute care visits in patients with cancer, new research showed. Women, individuals from racial minority groups, and those with Medicaid insurance were more likely to have a high symptom burden, although men and White patients accounted for most of the visits. METHODOLOGY: Many patients with cancer require unplanned acute care, including emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations, due to complications from their disease or treatment. These encounters affect outcomes, quality of life, and healthcare costs. However, little is known about symptom patterns preceding such visits. A cohort study conducted at a single tertiary-care institution analyzed outcomes from 28,708 adult patients with cancer who had symptoms documented in the 30 days before an acute care visit. Researchers used natural language processing to scan clinical notes for symptoms recorded in the 30 days before an ED visit or hospital stay. High symptom burden was defined as more than 10 different symptoms noted during that time. The primary outcomes were symptom burden and characterization of symptoms preceding acute care visits. Secondary outcomes included associations between symptom burden and sociodemographic characteristics (sex, race and ethnicity, age, and insurance type). TAKEAWAY: Overall, 70,606 acute care encounters were observed, and 854,830 symptoms were documented before an acute care visit. Men had 53.6% of the acute care encounters, and White patients had about 56.6%. The top 10 most common documented symptoms were pain (7.54%), nausea (6.74%), vomiting (5.79%), fatigue (5.26%), constipation (3.93%), fever (3.39%), generalized muscle weakness (3.32%), extremity edema (3.28%), dyspnea (3.12%), and headache (2.92%). Women (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.14); patients of Asian (aOR, 1.22), Black (aOR, 1.17), and American Indian or Alaska Native (aOR, 1.21) races; and Medicaid-insured patients (aOR, 1.10) were significantly more likely to have a documented high symptom burden. Patients aged 65 years or older (aOR, 0.96) and those without insurance (aOR, 0.58) were significantly less likely to have a documented high symptom burden preceding an acute care visit. IN PRACTICE: 'This analysis highlights differences in cancer symptom documentation across racial, sex, and socioeconomic subgroups, suggesting potential areas of disparities. This raises attention to the potential need to develop targeted interventions to ensure equitable access to health care for improved symptom management,' the authors wrote. SOURCE: This study, led by Chichi Chang, MEng, Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, University of California San Francisco, was published online in JAMA Network Open . LIMITATIONS: The limitations included retrospective design, single-center study, potentially incomplete data, and a predominantly White and insured population. Natural language processing methods could have limitations in accurately capturing complex clinical documentation. Repeated visits by the same patients might have biased symptom data. DISCLOSURES: This study received support from a National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health grant, a Conquer Cancer Career Development Award, and a University of California San Francisco Computational Cancer Award. One author reported providing paid services to Epi-Vant Consulting, outside the submitted work. Another author reported receiving grants from Roche, outside the submitted work.
