October Publications

Sachin Shah, Margaret Fang, and colleagues found that most older adults with atrial fibrillation have at least one geriatric syndrome; the more geriatric syndromes, the lower the likelihood of anticoagulant use. The high prevalence of geriatric syndromes may explain lower than expected anticoagulant use among older adults in the United States. Read More

This analysis of 21 protocols from US-based hospitals by Anna Parks (UCSF Hematology Fellow), Margaret Fang, Andrew Auerbach, David Sterken (former UCSF Academic Hospital Medicine Fellow), James Anstey (former USCF Academic Hospital Medicine Fellow and Faculty), and colleagues showed substantial variation in local practices associated with preventing COVID-19⁠–related venous thromboembolism. Read More

A new article in JGIM by James Salazar (UCSF StARR Research Fellow), Brad Sharpe, and Katie Raffel describes a novel framework for post-death care in the hospital (e.g. autopsy, bereavement, team debrief) called Sunset Rounds. Sunset Rounds can function as an interprofessional timeout, wherein a multidisciplinary group could gather shortly after a patient's death to address the important and nuanced post-death transition of care. The authors along with other UCSF Hospitalists are developing a modular curriculum around the Sunset Rounds framework to be released later this year in the IM Residency. Read More

This paper between the Chan Zuckerberg BioHub and many members of DHM (Sachin Shah, Peter Barish, Priya Prasad, Margaret Fang, Yumiko Abe-Jones, Francisco Alvarez, Rupa Marya, Nader Najafi, Sandra Martinez, and Kirsten Kangelaris) found nearly all studies on the clinical features of COVID are case series without control groups, making it difficult to distinguish what’s attributable to COVID versus any severe respiratory illness. In this paper, we use a carefully constructed control group to find a significant overlap in features. However, patients with COVID-19 did have higher rates of hospitalization, higher length of stay, and high risk for ARDS. Read More