Retrospective Cohort Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Oct 27, 2019; 11(10): 701-709
Published online Oct 27, 2019. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v11.i10.701
Impact on 30-d readmissions for cirrhotic patients with ascites after an educational intervention: A pilot study
Nicholas Lim, Otto Sanchez, Andrew Olson
Nicholas Lim, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, United States
Otto Sanchez, Division of Renal Diseases and Hypertension, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, United States
Andrew Olson, Division of General Internal Medicine, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, United States
Author contributions: Lim N and Olson A designed the study; Lim N gathered the data; Sanchez O compiled figures and tables, and performed statistical analysis; Lim N and Olson A wrote the initial and final drafts of the manuscript; All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This study was conducted with the approval of the institutional review board at the University of Minnesota, No. 1601S83245.
Informed consent statement: Due to its retrospective nature, informed consent was not required for this study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no financial disclosures or conflicts-of-interest to declare.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at nlim@umn.edu. Informed consent was not required due to the retrospective nature of this study but all presented data are anonymized and risk of identification is low.
STROBE statement: The guidelines of the STROBE Statement have been adopted.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Nicholas Lim, MD, Assistant Professor, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, University of Minnesota, 420 Delaware St SE, MMC 36, Minneapolis, MN 55455, United States. nlim@umn.edu
Telephone: +1-6-126258999
Received: June 17, 2019
Peer-review started: June 18, 2019
First decision: July 17, 2019
Revised: September 23, 2019
Accepted: October 2, 2019
Article in press: October 2, 2019
Published online: October 27, 2019
Core Tip

Core tip: Quality care remains relatively low in patients admitted to hospital with cirrhosis. Diagnostic paracentesis in patients with ascites has been identified as a target to improve quality in these patients. We developed and administered an educational intervention focused on paracentesis to medical residents caring for patients with cirrhosis using time-based randomization. After adjustment for model for end-stage liver disease-Na score, age and gender, patients in the intervention group had reduced 30-d readmissions. As health care costs rise, our results justify further study into the use of medical education to improve the delivery of quality care in patients with cirrhosis.