Matthias Görges

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Verified

Matthias verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at University of British Columbia

Dear Editor, We thank Dr. Starr and colleagues for their comments [1] on our recent investigation into the propofol- and remifentanil-sparing effects of a bolus dose of dexmedetomidine in pediatric surgery [2]. Their comments echo some limitations we acknowledged in our original publication. For example, they note that our propofol and remifentanil...

Background: Over the last decade, the health care technology landscape has expanded significantly, introducing new and innovative solutions to address health care needs. The implications of cybersecurity incidents in the health care context extend beyond data breaches to potentially harming individuals’ health and safety. Risk perception is influen...

Objectives: We aimed to develop a comprehensive list of patient care components performed by pediatric emergency department (PED) physicians that could be individually scored on their subjective workload using the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Task Load Index (NASA-TLX). These “care components,” alongside patient and environmental f...

Introduction: The digitization of medical records has the potential to facilitate clinical care and healthcare research by making data accessible and usable. Automated extraction of clinically relevant patient information can support clinical decision-making and the development of predictive models for patient outcomes. While newer structured repor...

Research Objectives: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with significant autonomic dysregulation as well as dysfunction of the central autonomic network (CAN), comprised of cortical and subcortical brain regions involved in autonomic modulation. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is an effective first-line intervention f...

Background: Beyond physical health, managing type 1 diabetes (T1D) also encompasses a psychological component, including diabetes distress, that is, the worries, fears, and frustrations associated with meeting self-care demands over the lifetime. While digital health solutions have been increasingly used to address emotional health in diabetes, the...

Background: Qualitative experience data can inform health care providers how to best support families during pediatric postoperative recovery. Patient experience data can also provide actionable information to guide health care quality improvement; positive feedback can confirm the efficacy of current practices and systems, while negative comments...

Background: Recent advances in digital health, the growth of wearable device use, and ubiquitous internet access are generating growing amounts of health and well-being data. Yet, people need tools to manage their health and wellness journeys, including trustworthy health access platforms to easily view, share, and manage their data as part of heal...

Introduction: Fewer in-person hospital visits due to the COVID-19 pandemic reduced the opportunity to recruit families for pediatric research studies. Concomitantly, the increasing use of virtual care further highlights the opportunity to use electronic consenting processes to enhance the ability to consent families and to increase the accessibilit...

Introduction: Preoperative anxiety is linked to many negative outcomes, including increased responses to painful stimuli, reduced pain threshold, prolonged induction of anesthesia, increased analgesic requirements, increased onset of negative postoperative behavioural changes, and fear of future medical encounters [1]. Distraction methods can reduc...

Background Patients undergoing colectomy are at risk of numerous major complications. However, existing binary risk stratification models do not predict when a patient may be at highest risks of each complication. Accurate prediction of the timing of complications facilitates targeted, resource-efficient monitoring. We sought to develop and interna...

Aims: To evaluate a mobile app that delivers mental health support to adults with type 1 diabetes (T1D) living in rural and remote communities using the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Intervention fidelity, Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework. Methods: This study recruited 46 adults to participate in a 6-month intervention using REACHOUT, a mobile app...

Background: Combining patient-generated health data and digital health platforms may improve patient experience and population health, mitigate rising health care costs, reduce clinician burnout, and enable health equity. However, lack of trust may be a notable barrier to the data-sharing required by such platforms. Understanding sociodemographic,...

Purpose of Review To explore the impact of digitally-enabled peer support interventions on diabetes distress and depression for individuals living with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D). Recent Findings We synthesized the results of nine key studies from a review of 3,623 English-language articles published between January 2012 and January 2024. Three studies...

Introduction: Most pediatric anesthetic inductions are accomplished using inhalational agents, often with pre-induction oral sedation [1,2]. Yet, total intravenous anesthesia (TIVA) has gained significant popularity [3] due to potential advantages, including decreased respiratory adverse events, postoperative nausea/vomiting, and emergence agitatio...

Introduction Posterior spinal instrumentation and fusion (PSIF) is a common surgical correction for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. Preventative multimodal analgesia, including a continuous morphine infusion, minimizes the significant postoperative pain associated with PSIF. However, dose-dependent opioid side effects may interrupt return to norm...

Introduction Similar to global trends, the prevalence of Canadian children with obesity has risen from about 5% in 1990 to over 12% in 2022 [1]. Childhood obesity is associated with a range of long-term consequences, including type-2 diabetes, hypertension, asthma, sleep-disordered breathing, hyperlipidemia, metabolic-associated steatotic liver dis...

Background: Dexmedetomidine, an α2-adrenergic agonist, reduces propofol and remifentanil requirements when used as an adjunct to total intravenous anesthesia in adults, but studies in a pediatric population are sparse. This study investigates the magnitude of dose-sparing effects of a postinduction dexmedetomidine bolus on propofol and remifentanil...

OBJECTIVE: To develop a list of core system requirements for returning individual research results to study participants. METHODS: We conducted a narrative literature review of existing platforms used to return research results to study participants. The search strategy included English-language articles published between May/2013 and May/2023. Con...

Background: Qualitative experience data can inform healthcare providers how to best support families during pediatric postoperative recovery. Patient experience data can also provide actionable information to guide healthcare quality improvement: positive feedback can confirm the efficacy of current practices and systems, while negative comments ca...

Surgical site infections (SSIs) continue to represent a significant portion of healthcare-associated infections, resulting in increased risk of morbidity and mortality, pain, and hospital resource utilization. SSIs are preventable with evidence-based prevention bundled strategies. We believe that timely performance feedback can improve professional...

Background: Over the last decade, the healthcare technology landscape has expanded significantly, introducing new and innovative solutions to address healthcare needs. The implications of cybersecurity incidents in the healthcare context extend beyond data breaches to potentially harming individuals' health and safety. Risk perception is influenced...

Background Over the last decade, the health care technology landscape has expanded significantly, introducing new and innovative solutions to address health care needs. The implications of cybersecurity incidents in the health care context extend beyond data breaches to potentially harming individuals’ health and safety. Risk perception is influenc...

BACKGROUND Beyond physical health, managing type 1 diabetes (T1D) also encompasses a psychological component, including diabetes distress, that is, the worries, fears, and frustrations associated with meeting self-care demands over the lifetime. While digital health solutions have been increasingly used to address emotional health in diabetes, thes...

Background: Exposure to opioids after surgery is the initial contact for some people who develop chronic opioid use disorder. Hence, effective postoperative pain management, with less reliance on opioids, is critical. The Perioperative Opioid Quality Improvement (POQI) program developed (1) a digital health platform leveraging patient-survey-report...

Introduction: Qualitative parent/patient experience data can inform healthcare providers how to best support families during pediatric postoperative recovery [1]. A previous 2011-2018 analysis of qualitative feedback at our institution showed that patient experience data could provide actionable information to guide healthcare quality improvement (...

Purpose: Most pediatric anesthetic inductions are accomplished using inhalation of volatile agents, and pre-induction oral sedating medication use is common. This may stem from a desire to decrease “pokes that hurt” while children are awake and the assumption that volatile agents will form the basis of the maintenance anesthetic [1,2]. Yet, total...

Introduction Postoperative pain studies frequently use opioid requirements to measure the effectiveness of adjuvant analgesia [1]; e.g., using total postoperative opioid utilization (TotalOpioid) as the primary outcome to assess the benefit of the erector spinae plane block (ESPB) in pediatric pyeloplasty surgery. Before proposing this study at our...

Introduction: Preoperative anxiety is linked to many negative outcomes, including increased responses to painful stimuli, reduced pain threshold, prolonged induction of anesthesia, increased analgesic requirements, increased onset of negative postoperative behavioural changes, and fear of future medical encounters [1,2]. Distraction methods reduce...

Introduction: Fewer in-person hospital visits due to the COVID-19 pandemic reduced the opportunity to recruit families for pediatric research studies. However, the increasing implementation of virtual care highlights the opportunity to use electronic consenting processes to enhance our ability to gain local and remote consent and increase the acces...

Introduction: Approximately one in five children experience persistent postoperative pain for up to 12 months after surgery [1]. This can be associated with undesired consequences, including poor quality of life, decreased trust in the healthcare system, increased opioid use, and additional use of healthcare resources such as emergency room visits...

Introduction: Anesthesia plays a crucial role in the care of children undergoing non-surgical procedures that are painful, uncomfortable, or require them to remain still for prolonged periods of time. One commonly used technique for such cases is propofol infusion with maintenance of spontaneous ventilation. Propofol has a narrow therapeutic index...

Introduction: Propofol is an intravenous anesthetic agent used to induce and maintain general anesthesia in children undergoing surgery or other medical procedures. It possesses a narrow therapeutic index, so the dose di"erence needed to induce loss of consciousness and apnea is small. It is also highly variable between patients [1]. The increased...

Background and Objectives: Anesthesia plays a crucial role in the care of children undergoing non-surgical procedures that are painful, uncomfortable, or require them to remain still for prolonged periods of time. One commonly used technique for such cases is propofol infusion with maintenance of spontaneous ventilation. Propofol has a narrow thera...

Background and Objectives: Propofol is an intravenous anesthetic agent used to induce and maintain general anesthesia in children undergoing surgery or other medical procedures. It possesses a narrow therapeutic index, so the dose difference needed to induce loss of consciousness and apnea is small. It is also highly variable between patients [1]....

Background: Pediatric intensive care unit (PICU)–associated delirium contributes to a decline in postdischarge quality of life, with worse outcomes for individuals with delayed identification. As delirium screening rates remain low within PICUs, caregivers may be able to assist with early detection, for which they need more education, as awareness...

Background/Objectives: Surgical site infection (SSI) is an important patient-centric outcome resulting in an increased risk of morbidity and mortality, pain, and hospital resource utilization. Preventative strategies to reduce this risk include preoperative skin cleansing, prophylactic antimicrobial coverage, and maintenance of perioperative normot...

BACKGROUND Exposure to opioids after surgery is the initial contact for some people who develop chronic opioid use disorder. Hence, effective postoperative pain management, with less reliance on opioids, is critical. The Perioperative Opioid Quality Improvement (POQI) program developed (1) a digital health platform leveraging patient-survey-reporte...

Background: Risk identification and communication tools have the potential to improve healthcare by supporting clinician-patient/family discussion of treatment risks and benefits and helping patients make more informed decisions; however, they have yet to be tailored to pediatric surgery. User-centred design principles can help to ensure the succes...

Background: Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of individuals struggling with eating disorders (EDs) increased substantially. Body Brave (a not-for-profit) created and implemented a web-based stepped-care Recovery Support Programme (RSP) to improve access to community-based ED services. This quality improvement study describes the RSP and...

BACKGROUND Combining patient-generated health data and digital health platforms may improve the patient experience and population health, mitigate rising healthcare costs, reduce clinician burnout, and enable health equity. Yet, lack of trust may be a significant barrier to data sharing required to use such platforms. Understanding sociodemographic...

Background: Anesthesiologists require an understanding of their patients’ outcomes to evaluate their performance and improve their practice. Traditionally, anesthesiologists had limited information about their surgical outpatients’ outcomes due to minimal contact post-discharge. Leveraging digital health innovations for analyzing personal and popul...

Background: Digital health apps are becoming increasingly available for people living with diabetes, yet data silos continue to exist. This requires health care providers (HCPs) and patients to use multiple digital platforms to access health data. Objective: In this study, we gathered the perspectives of caregivers of children and youths living wi...

Introduction: Recent years have witnessed a dramatic shift toward digital health technologies for mental health care delivery. While research investigating digital interventions involving peer support for children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes (T1D) has been growing, few, if any studies, have examined peer support mental health interventions...

Introduction and aims: Adolescent anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction surgery typically requires an overnight hospital stay and an opioid-based perioperative analgesic regimen.[1]. Pressure on hospital inpatient bed capacity since the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 has significantly increased elective surgery wait times [2]. In response to thi...

Background: The prevalence of obesity among Canadian children is rising, partly because of increasingly obesogenic environments that limit opportunities for physical activity and healthy nutrition. Live 5-2-1-0 is a community-based multisectoral childhood obesity prevention initiative that engages stakeholders to promote and support the message of...

Introduction: Pyeloplasty is a common surgery to correct ureteropelvic junction obstruction and is associated with significant postoperative pain. The primary analgesic modality at our institution is continuous morphine infusion (CMI), typically administered overnight and discontinued on postoperative day 1 (POD1), with discharge on POD2. Side effe...

Introduction: Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction surgery typically requires an overnight hospital stay and an opioid-based perioperative analgesic regimen for pain management [1]. Pressure on hospital inpatient bed capacity since the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 has significantly increased elective surgery wait times [2]. In response to thi...

BACKGROUND Anesthesiologists require an understanding of their patients’ outcomes to evaluate their performance and improve their practice. Traditionally, anesthesiologists had limited information about their surgical outpatients’ outcomes due to minimal contact post discharge. Leveraging digital health innovations for analyzing personal and popula...

BACKGROUND Risk identification and communication tools have the potential to improve health care by supporting clinician-patient or family discussion of treatment risks and benefits and helping patients make more informed decisions; however, they have yet to be tailored to pediatric surgery. User-centered design principles can help to ensure the su...

Improving the prediction of blood glucose concentration may improve the quality of life of people living with type 1 diabetes by enabling them to better manage their care. Given the anticipated benefits of such a prediction, numerous methods have been proposed. Rather than attempting to predict glucose concentration, a deep learning framework for p...

BACKGROUND Digital health applications are becoming increasingly available for people living with diabetes, yet data silos continue to exist. This requires healthcare providers (HCP) and patients to use multiple digital platforms to access health data. OBJECTIVE In this study, we gathered the perspectives of caregivers of children and youth living...

BACKGROUND The prevalence of obesity among Canadian children is rising, partly because of increasingly obesogenic environments that limit opportunities for physical activity and healthy nutrition. Live 5-2-1-0 is a community-based multisectoral childhood obesity prevention initiative that engages stakeholders to promote and support the message of c...

Background The perioperative period is a data-rich environment with potential for innovation through digital health tools and predictive analytics to optimize patients’ health with targeted prehabilitation. Although some risk factors for postoperative pain following pediatric surgery are already known, the systematic use of preoperative information...

Background: Posterior spinal instrumentation and fusion (PSIF) surgery for scoliosis correction is associated with significant blood loss, oftentimes requiring intraoperative blood transfusion1. In the absence of a specific transfusion guideline at our hospital, the transfusion decision depends on clinical judgment. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS...

Background: Digital health innovation has the potential to improve perioperative quality. Specifically, data-driven feedback can improve professional practice and outcomes.1-3 Feedback is most effective when it is locally relevant and derived from a credible source.4 Providing anesthesiologists with access to their performance and outcome data in a...

BACKGROUND: Anesthesia is an integral part of care for children undergoing non-surgical procedures that are painful, uncomfortable, or require them to remain still for prolonged periods. Propofol infusion with spontaneous ventilation is a popular anesthetic technique for such cases. However, propofol has a narrow therapeutic index between loss of c...

Background: The perioperative period is a data-rich environment, with the potential for improving personal and population-level postoperative outcomes through digital health innovations. Yet much of the data collected remains inaccessible to clinicians; anesthesiologists often lack the information needed to assess their performance or know their pa...

BACKGROUND: Anesthesia is an integral part of care for children undergoing non-surgical procedures that are painful, uncomfortable, or require them to remain still for prolonged periods. Propofol infusion with maintenance of spontaneous ventilation is a popular anesthetic technique for such cases. However, propofol has a narrow therapeutic index be...

BACKGROUND: The Pediatric Difficult Intubation (PeDI) registry collects self-reported outcome data of children with anticipated difficult direct laryngoscopy, for benchmarking, quality improvement, and research. It reported an airway instrumentation hypoxemia rate of 9% for 2012-2014 1. However, hypoxemia might be under-reported due to recall bias...

PURPOSE: Approximately 1 in 5 children have persistent postoperative pain at 12 months following surgery [1], which can negatively affect their quality of life [2]. Although pain management has been identified as an area for improvement across North America [3], there is limited evidence for personalized risk identification and communication [4], s...

BACKGROUND The perioperative period is a data-rich environment with potential for innovation through digital health tools and predictive analytics (e.g., to optimize patients’ health with targeted pre-habilitation). While some risk factors for postoperative pain following pediatric surgery are already known, the systematic use of pre-operative info...

Background: Pediatric surgery is associated with a risk of postoperative pain that can impact the family’s quality of life. Although some risk factors for postoperative pain are known, these are often not consistently communicated to families. In addition, although tools for risk communication exist in other domains, none are tailored to pediatric...

Introduction: Massive pulmonary hemorrhage (MPH) is an airway emergency with considerable heterogeneity in definition, etiology, and management. Initial approach to MPH involves advanced cardiac life support and airway stabilization with isolation and ventilation of the non-bleeding lung.1 The low frequency, high acuity, and often poor outcome of M...

Introduction: While mental health (MH) is the cornerstone of diabetes care, access to MH support in rural and remote communities in British Columbia (BC) is limited. The purpose of this study was to design REACHOUT, a virtual care platform, to deliver peer-led MH support to adults with T1D in geographically marginalized communities in BC. Methods:...

We investigated the uptake and perceptions of virtual care solutions by rural Canadian primary and specialist providers during the early phase (May-June 2020) of the COVID-19 pandemic. A web-based, cross-sectional survey of rural primary and specialty care providers examined types of virtual care platforms used (eg, phone, video), appointment lengt...

Background: Prior to the wider adoption of digital health technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic, applications of virtual care were largely limited to specialist visits and remote care using telehealth (phone or video) applications. Data sharing approaches using tethered patient portals were mostly built around hospitals and larger care systems....

Background: Mobile apps have been increasingly incorporated into healthy behavior promotion interventions targeting childhood obesity. However, their effectiveness remains unclear. Objective: This paper aims to conduct a systematic review examining the effectiveness of mobile apps aimed at preventing childhood obesity by promoting health behavior c...

Introduction: Massive pulmonary hemorrhage (MPH) is an airway emergency that requires immediate intervention, such as with bronchial blockade. Although bleeds of this magnitude are uncommon,1 the associated mortality is reported to be as high as 38%.2 The management of low frequency high acuity events, such as MPH, may benefit from simulation wher...

PROJECT DEMONSTRATES & INFORMS PATIENT-ORIENTED RESEARCH. To ensure that our pain risk prediction research is representative of caregiver and patient needs, we have included parents and patient partners to inform the design, implementation, and dissemination of our work. INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND. Postsurgical pain is a potential risk of pediatric su...

( Anesth Analg . 2021;132:485–492) Transmural dispersion of myocardial repolarization (TDR) is the interval between the peak of the T wave and end of the TV wave (Tp-e). Increased TDR is a more reliable predictor of drug torsadogenicity than prolonged QT interval. Carbetocin, a synthetic analog of oxytocin, is used to prevent postpartum hemorrhage...

BACKGROUND Pediatric surgery is associated with a risk of postoperative pain that can impact the family’s quality of life. Although some risk factors for postoperative pain are known, these are often not consistently communicated to families. In addition, although tools for risk communication exist in other domains, none are tailored to pediatric s...

Reference values for non-invasive blood pressure (NIBP) are available for children undergoing general anesthesia, but have not been analyzed by type of anesthetic. This study establishes age-specific pediatric NIBP reference values, stratified by anesthetic type: inhalational anesthesia (IHA), total intravenous anesthesia (TIVA), and mostly intrave...

Introduction: Detection of intraoperative hypotension relies on measuring non-invasive blood pressure (NIBP) or invasive arterial blood pressure. However, significant decreases in end-tidal carbon dioxide concentration (etCO2) can also indicate decreased cardiac output [1]. During most general anesthetics, NIBP is sampled infrequently, typically ev...

Background: The perioperative period is a data-rich environment, with the potential for improving personal and population- level postoperative outcomes through digital health innovations. Yet much of the data collected remains inaccessible to clinicians; anesthesiologists often lack the information needed to assess their performance or know their p...

BACKGROUND. Approximately 1 in 5 children have persistent postoperative pain at 12 months following surgery [1], which can substantially affect their quality of life, frequency of hospital visits, opioid consumption, and overall trust in the healthcare system [2]. Pain management has been identified as a key area for improvement at BC Children’s Ho...

Introduction: The perioperative period is a data-rich environment, with potential for improving personal and population- level postoperative outcomes through digital health interventions. Data-driven performance feedback can improve professional anesthetic practice and patient-relevant outcomes [1,2]. A postoperative follow-up (POFU) registry was e...

Personal health records are increasingly being deployed in healthcare settings. In this study we explored patients’ perceptions of personal health records in a rural community in Canada where a primary health network is being deployed. A focus group was held and data were thematically analysed. All patients used technology on a regular basis. Theme...

BACKGROUND Mobile apps have been increasingly incorporated into healthy behavior promotion interventions targeting childhood obesity. However, their effectiveness remains unclear. OBJECTIVE This paper aims to conduct a systematic review examining the effectiveness of mobile apps aimed at preventing childhood obesity by promoting health behavior ch...

Ketamine may affect the reliability of electroencephalographic (EEG) depth-of-hypnosis indices as it affects power in high-frequency EEG components. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of ketamine on three commonly-used depth-of-hypnosis indices by extending our EEG simulator to allow replay of previously-recorded EEG. Secondary an...

Objectives: To evaluate the performance of pragmatic imputation approaches when estimating model coefficients using datasets with varying degrees of data missingness. Design: Performance in predicting observed mortality in a registry dataset was evaluated using simulations of two simple logistic regression models with age-specific criteria for a...

( Anesth Analg . 2021;132:485–492) Transmural dispersion of myocardial repolarization (TDR) is the interval between the peak of the T wave and end of the TV wave (Tp-e). Increased TDR is a more reliable predictor of drug torsadogenicity than prolonged QT interval. Carbetocin, a synthetic analog of oxytocin, is used to prevent postpartum hemorrhage...

Background: In the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), quantifying illness severity can be guided by risk models to enable timely identification and appropriate intervention. Logistic regression models, including the pediatric index of mortality 2 (PIM-2) and pediatric risk of mortality III (PRISM-III), produce a mortality risk score using data t...

BACKGROUND Prior to the wider adoption of digital health technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic, applications of virtual care were largely limited to specialist visits and remote care using telehealth (phone or video) applications. Data sharing approaches using tethered patient portals were mostly built around hospitals and larger care systems....

Background: Dexmedetomidine is a useful anesthetic adjunct, increasingly popular during pediatric surgery and procedural sedation. Its half-life of 2-3 hours might prolong recovery and discharge times when compared with an un-supplemented propofol anesthetic. This may create an additional burden in a busy post-anesthetic care unit (PACU). Aim: T...

Background and Aims: Trust in digital health is a significant challenge. We are developing a digital solution, TRUSTSPHERE (TS),that will address this trust gap to enable easier adoption of digital health. Our test use case is children living with type 1 diabetes (T1D), and our aim is that TS serves as a digital identity layer that will empower pat...

Introduction: Aerosol transmission, while controversial, is thought to contribute to the infectious pattern of transmission in the current COVID-19 pandemic [1-5]. There are several aerosol generating medical procedures (AGMP) that are a cause of concern for the health and safety of healthcare providers (HP) including high flow oxygen therapy, preo...

Background: Aerosol generating medical procedures (AGMP) are a concern in the current COVID-19 pandemic [1-3]. One concern in the guidance for intubation of COVID+ patients is foregoing oxygen therapy and bag-mask ventilation prior to a rapid sequence induction [4], favoring provider safety over patient safety. Several isolation chambers have been...

Background: Virtual care, increasingly mobilized during the COVID-19 pandemic, can enhance data-sharing between patients and providers, but little is known about it. The purpose of this study was to explore patient perspectives of data-sharing with providers during the COVID-19 pandemic as part of a larger study including primary care provider pers...

Dose-dependent effects of ketamine on processed electroencephalographic depth-of-hypnosis indices have been reported. Limited data are available for the NeuroSENSE WAVCNS index. Our aim was to establish the feasibility of closed-loop propofol-remifentanil anesthesia guided by the WAVCNS index in the presence of an analgesic dose of ketamine. Thirty...

Background: Many hospitalized children in developing countries die from infectious diseases. Early recognition of those who are critically ill coupled with timely treatment can prevent many deaths. A data-driven, electronic triage system to assist frontline health workers in categorizing illness severity is lacking. This study aimed to develop a da...

Intravenous lidocaine infusion (IVLI) in the perioperative period has been shown to have analgesic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-hyperalgesic effects.[ [1] ] Berkman et al.[ [2] ] recently demonstrated the feasibility of opioid-free pain management after elective spine surgery in adults, taking this one step further. Yet, the potential preventive an...

Objectives: The onset of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic resulted in rapid implementation of virtual care solutions at an unprecedented pace. The news media, as a trusted source for many Canadians, plays a vital role during emergencies by reporting on changes in health care protocols, policies, and technologies. This article presents the results of a...

Pre-existing cross-reactivity to SARS-CoV-2 may occur in absence of prior viral exposure. However, this has been difficult to quantify at the population level due to a lack of reliably defined seroreactivity thresholds. Using an orthogonal antibody testing approach, we estimated that ~0.6% of non-triaged adults from the greater Vancouver area, Cana...

Objectives: To investigate the characteristics and timing of death of children with severe infections who die during PICU admission. Design: We analyzed demographics, timing of death, diagnoses, and common procedures in a large cohort obtained from the Virtual Pediatrics Systems database, focusing on early deaths (< 1 d). Setting: Clinical rec...

Background: Closed-loop control of propofol-remifentanil anesthesia using the processed electroencephalography depth-of-hypnosis index provided by the NeuroSENSE monitor (WAVCNS) has been previously described. The purpose of this placebo-controlled study was to evaluate the performance (percentage time within ±10 units of the setpoint during the m...

Background Personal health records (PHR) provide opportunities for improved patient engagement, collection of patient-generated data, and overcome health-system inefficiencies. While PHR use is increasing, uptake in rural populations is lower than in urban areas. Objectives The study aimed to identify priorities for PHR functionality and gain insi...

BACKGROUND. Posterior spinal instrumentation and fusion (PSIF) for scoliosis surgery is a long surgical procedure, commonly performed in pediatrics. As such, patients are exposed to significant physiologic insult, including significant blood loss,1 and thus inadequate end-organ perfusion. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a non-invasive techniqu...

Background: Chronic post-surgical pain (CPSP) - pain lasting for >3 months after surgery - affects up to 30% of patients [1]; 5-10% of patients report severe pain 1 year after major surgery [2]. CPSP increases the risk of prolonged opioid use; specifically, 3-10% of opioid-naïve patients have been found to have ongoing opioid use 3-6 months after s...

Background: Improving access to clinical data is a key component of the research and quality improvement work at BC Children’s Hospital (BCCH),1 and likely many other academic medical centers. Informed by a recent narrative review of clinical data warehouse technologies,2 we are developing a pediatric clinical research data warehouse using the i2b2...