Category Archives: Emory Authors

Emory Authors: Unit-level organizational resources and occupational exposure to bloodborne pathogens: A multi-hospital study

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“Each year, roughly 300,000 hospital workers are exposed to bloodborne pathogens. These workers are at substantial risk due to frequent contact with patients, biological materials, and contaminated environments. Such exposures can result in significant physical, psychological, and economic consequences for affected workers and hospitals. Prior studies suggest that factors such as job role, work location, shift timing, and deviations from infection prevention guidelines may increase the likelihood of exposure to bloodborne pathogens among healthcare workers.”

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Emory Authors: Orientation of New Graduate Nurses to Acute and Critical Care: Reimagining the Preceptor Role.

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“The preparation new graduate nurses (NGNs) receive in prelicensure education is requisite skill and knowledge for entry into the profession but falls short of the expected competence for independent nursing practice. This competency gap is a well-described challenge for nurse educators and nurse leaders. For NGNs, the academic practice gap represents a
steep learning curve in a complex setting. Entry into practice in highly specialized acute care units is a fast-paced, high-stakes environment complicated by staffing shortages, heavy workloads, and hostile workplace cultures.”

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Emory Authors: Can consumer wearables support outpatient health monitoring for patients with post-acute infection syndromes? A systematic umbrella review of accuracy, validity, and clinical utility data

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“Consumer health wearables—commercially available health tracking devices such as
smartwatches and other wearable sensors coupled to smartphones—have become
broadly adopted in the United States. A 2024 study found that 44.5% of Americans
reported using a wearable on a regular basis. These devices are designed to
passively and continuously collect physiological data, offering users a convenient,
data-driven, and readily available means of engaging with indicators of their health.
Biometrics tracked by consumer wearables with demonstrated links to health status
include heart rate, heart rate variability, blood oxygen saturation, electrodermal activity, blood pressure, and indices of sleep quantity and quality, among others.”

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Emory Authors: Capturing Learner Perspectives: Development and Validation of the Skills-Based Training Evaluation Tool

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“Gathering feedback from learners about their experiences with educational activities is vital for continuous quality improvement of learning activities and to gauge the effectiveness of teaching methods. Learners should be viewed as partners in their educational experience and be encouraged to share feedback on teaching and learning strategies, thus creating
a collaborative learning environment with faculty. Learners have valuable insights into the effectiveness and relevance of curricula and teaching methods, and their feedback can lead to more engaging and effective learning experiences, ultimately leading to better student outcomes and preparation for their future professional roles. Asking learners for
feedback about learning activities denotes respect, encourages active engagement in learning, and leads to process improvement. When learners feel heard and valued,
a sense of ownership of their education is created, and a more collaborative learning environment is fostered.”

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Emory Authors: Better than nothing, far from perfect: hospital and healthcare system leaders’ perspectives on health information exchanges

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“Implementation and effective use of health information exchanges (HIEs)—systems that electronically share clinical and administrative data between settings of care—has the
potential to transform health care and improve patient out-comes. Financial investments in HIE infrastructure and the achievement of a critical mass of hospitals and health systems
participating in information sharing have mitigated key structural barriers to HIE use, while technological innovations, including the incorporation of HIE into electronic health records (EHRs), have improved integration of HIEs into many clinicians’ workflows. However, real-world use of HIE is lagging: it is estimated that HIEs are accessed in less than 20% of
clinical encounters and in only 50% of referrals—despite being a part of required reporting for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Promoting Interoperability incentive
program. Health information exchange use varies widely across settings of care: as few as 3.7% of outpatient visits and 17.6% of inpatient admissions recorded HIE use in one study.”

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Emory Authors: Capture of Patient Itch Scores in Practice Reveals Disparate Itch Impact on the Basis of Age, Gender, and Race: A Cross-Sectional Survey Analysis

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“The complete impact of skin disease on patients represents a sum of disease impacts in multiple domains, including symptom, emotional, and functional impacts. These domains
define the patient’s illness experience, which can be different from what physicians perceive when they examine the skin. Consistently capturing and quantifying disease impact in individual patients in routine clinical dermatology practice are difficult. Measures of disease activity, when captured in dermatology practice, tend to focus on objective measures such as skin erythema and scale or body surface area involved. Skin symptom burden may not readily be observed by clinicians, resulting in underestimating skin disease burdens.”

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Emory Authors: Re-viewing the concept of saturation in qualitative research

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“The term saturation is used ubiquitously in reports of qualitative research. The term is often used, however, as a throw-away line, sans definition, rationale, or explanation of the process. Consequently, there remains a question about what is meant when saturation is used.The concept of saturation originated in grounded theory. Achieving theoretical saturation is one of the tenets of grounded theory. Over time, this specific and singular term has migrated to a general term that reflects various types of saturation such as code, data, theme, and meaning saturation. There is a lack of clarity among saturation types and a lack of transparency in reporting what is meant by saturation and how it was achieved. There is also a question about the relevance of saturation to qualitative methodologies outside grounded theory.”

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