Tara Lagu, MD

My colleague asked, “Do you remember that patient?” I froze because, like most emergency physicians, this phrase haunts me. It was the early days of the COVID-19 epidemic, and the story that followed was upsetting. A patient who looked comfortable when I admitted him was intubated hours later by the rapid response team who was called to the floor. All I could think was, “But he looked so comfortable when I admitted him; he was just on a couple of liters of oxygen. Why was he intubated?”

In the days after COVID-19 arrived in our region, there were many such stories of patients sent to the floor from the Emergency Department who were intubated shortly after admission. Many of those patients subsequently endured prolonged and complicated courses on the ventilator. While we would typically use noninvasive modalities such as high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) or noninvasive ventilation (NIV) for acute respiratory failure, our quickness to intubate was driven by two factors: (1) early reports that noninvasive modalities posed a high risk of failure and subsequent intubation and (2) fear that HFNC and NIV would aerosolize SARS-CoV-2 and unnecessarily expose the heath care team.¹ We would soon find out that our thinking was flawed on both accounts.

When we dug into the evidence for early intubation, we realized that these recommendations were based on a 12-patient series in which 5 patients were trialed on NIV but ultimately intubated and placed on invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV). As the pandemic progressed, more case series and small studies were published, revealing a different picture.² Sun and colleagues reported a multifaceted intervention of 610 inpatients, of whom 10% were critically ill, that identified at-risk patients and used NIV or HFNC and awake proning. Reportedly, fewer than 1% required IMV.³ Similarly, a small study found intubation was avoided in 85% of patients with severe acute respiratory failure caused by COVID-19 with use of HFNC and NIV.⁴ Early findings from New York University in New York, New York, where only 8.5% of patients undergoing IMV were extubated by the time of outcome reporting, suggest early IMV could lead to poor outcomes.⁵

Still, we had concerns about use of HFNC and NIV because of worries about the health and safety of other patients and particularly that of healthcare workers (HCWs) because they have been disproportionately affected by the disease.⁶ Fortunately, we identified emerging data that revealed that HFNC is no more aerosolizing than low-flow nasal cannula or a non­rebreather mask and droplet spread is reduced with a surgical mask.^7,8 In light of these new studies and our own developing experience with the disease, we felt that there was insufficient evidence to continue following the “early intubation” protocol in patients with COVID-19. It was time for a new paradigm.

In order to effectively and quickly change our respiratory pathway for these patients, we initially sought out protocols from other institutions through social media. These protocols, supported by early data from those sites, informed our process. We considered data from various sources, including emergency medicine, hospital medicine, and critical care. We then assembled stakeholders within our organization from emergency medicine, hospital medicine, critical care, and respiratory therapy because our protocol would need endorsement from all key players within our organization who cared for these patients across the potential spectrum of care. We made sure that all stakeholders understood that the quality of the evidence for treatment of this novel disease was much lower than our typical threshold to change practice, but that we aimed to reflect the best evidence to date. We also were careful to identify pathways that would be amenable to near-immediate implementation.

Our group reached consensus within 48 hours and quickly disseminated our first draft of the protocol (Appendix Figure). Dubbed the “Early Intervention Respiratory Protocol,” it differed from usual management in several ways. First, we had consistently observed (and confirmed from the literature) a phenotype of patients with “silent hypoxemia”⁹ (that is, a subset of patients who presented with profound hypoxemia but minimally increased work of breathing). The protocol encouraged tolerance of lower oxygen saturations than is usually seen on inpatient units. This required ensuring all stakeholders were comfortable with a target oxygen saturation of 88%. Second, the protocol leveraged early “awake” proning by patients. Historically, proning is used in mechanically ventilated patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) to improve ventilation-perfusion matching, promote more uniform ventilation, and increase end-expiratory lung volume.¹⁰ Prior literature was limited to the use of awake proning in small case series of ARDS, but given our limitations in terms of ICU capacity, we agreed to trial awake proning in a sizable proportion of our COVID-19 patients outside the ICU.^11,12 Finally, we clarified safe practices regarding the risk of aerosolization with noninvasive modalities. Local infection control determined that HFNC wa not aerosol generating, and use of surgical masks was added for further protection from respiratory droplets. In addition, airborne personal protective equipment was to be worn on the inpatient ward, and we used NIV sparingly and preferentially placed these patients in negative pressure rooms, if available.¹³

Implementation of the protocol involved aggressive dissemination and education (Table). A single-page protocol was designed for ease of use at the bedside that included anticipatory guidance regarding aerosolization and addressed potential resistance to awake proning because of concerns regarding safety and hassle. Departmental leaders disseminated the protocol throughout the institution with tailored education on the rationale and acknowledgment of a reversal in approach. In addition to email, we used text messaging (WhatsApp) and a comprehensive living document (Google Drive) to reach clinicians.

For ease of monitoring and safety, we designated a COVID-19 intermediate care unit. We partnered with the unit medical director, nurse educator, and a focused group of hospitalists, conducting individual train-the-trainer sessions. This training was carried forward, and all nurses, respiratory therapists, and clinicians were trained on the early aggressive respiratory protocol within 12 hours of protocol approval. In addition, the rapid response and critical care teams agreed to round on the COVID-19 intermediate care unit daily.

As a result of these efforts, adoption of the protocol was essentially immediate across the institution. We had shifted the mindset of a diverse group of clinicians regarding how to support the respiratory status of these patients, but also detected reductions in the proportion of patients undergoing IMV and ICU admission (we are planning to report these results separately).

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of having cognitive flexibility when the evidence base is rapidly changing and there is a need for rapid dissemination of knowledge. Even in clinical scenarios with an abundance of high-quality evidence, a gap in knowledge translation on the order of a decade often exists. In contrast, a pandemic involving a novel virus highlights an urgent need for adaptive knowledge translation in the present moment rather than a decade later. In the absence of robust evidence regarding SARS-CoV-2, early management of COVID-19 was based on expert recommendations and experience with other disease processes. Even so, we should anticipate that management paradigms may shift, and we should constantly seek out emerging evidence to adjust our mindset (and protocols like this) accordingly. Our original protocol was based on nearly nonexistent evidence, but we anticipated that, in a pandemic, data would accumulate quickly, so we prioritized rapid translation of new information into practice. In fact, further evidence has emerged regarding the improvement in oxygenation in COVID-19 patients with self-proning.¹⁴

The final step is evaluating the success of both clinical and implementation outcomes. We are attempting to identify changes in intubation, length of stay, days on ventilator, and days in ICU. In addition, we will measure feasibility and adaptability. We are also attempting, in real time, to identify barriers to its use, including conducting qualitative interviews to understand whether there were unintended consequences to use of the protocol. This endeavor highlights how the COVID-19 pandemic, for all its tragedy, may represent an important era for implementation science: a time when emerging literature from a variety of sources can be implemented in days rather than years.

My colleague asked, “Do you remember that patient?” I froze because, like most emergency physicians, this phrase haunts me. It was the early days of the COVID-19 epidemic, and the story that followed was upsetting. A patient who looked comfortable when I admitted him was intubated hours later by the rapid response team who was called to the floor. All I could think was, “But he looked so comfortable when I admitted him; he was just on a couple of liters of oxygen. Why was he intubated?”

In the days after COVID-19 arrived in our region, there were many such stories of patients sent to the floor from the Emergency Department who were intubated shortly after admission. Many of those patients subsequently endured prolonged and complicated courses on the ventilator. While we would typically use noninvasive modalities such as high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) or noninvasive ventilation (NIV) for acute respiratory failure, our quickness to intubate was driven by two factors: (1) early reports that noninvasive modalities posed a high risk of failure and subsequent intubation and (2) fear that HFNC and NIV would aerosolize SARS-CoV-2 and unnecessarily expose the heath care team.¹ We would soon find out that our thinking was flawed on both accounts.

When we dug into the evidence for early intubation, we realized that these recommendations were based on a 12-patient series in which 5 patients were trialed on NIV but ultimately intubated and placed on invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV). As the pandemic progressed, more case series and small studies were published, revealing a different picture.² Sun and colleagues reported a multifaceted intervention of 610 inpatients, of whom 10% were critically ill, that identified at-risk patients and used NIV or HFNC and awake proning. Reportedly, fewer than 1% required IMV.³ Similarly, a small study found intubation was avoided in 85% of patients with severe acute respiratory failure caused by COVID-19 with use of HFNC and NIV.⁴ Early findings from New York University in New York, New York, where only 8.5% of patients undergoing IMV were extubated by the time of outcome reporting, suggest early IMV could lead to poor outcomes.⁵

Still, we had concerns about use of HFNC and NIV because of worries about the health and safety of other patients and particularly that of healthcare workers (HCWs) because they have been disproportionately affected by the disease.⁶ Fortunately, we identified emerging data that revealed that HFNC is no more aerosolizing than low-flow nasal cannula or a non­rebreather mask and droplet spread is reduced with a surgical mask.^7,8 In light of these new studies and our own developing experience with the disease, we felt that there was insufficient evidence to continue following the “early intubation” protocol in patients with COVID-19. It was time for a new paradigm.

In order to effectively and quickly change our respiratory pathway for these patients, we initially sought out protocols from other institutions through social media. These protocols, supported by early data from those sites, informed our process. We considered data from various sources, including emergency medicine, hospital medicine, and critical care. We then assembled stakeholders within our organization from emergency medicine, hospital medicine, critical care, and respiratory therapy because our protocol would need endorsement from all key players within our organization who cared for these patients across the potential spectrum of care. We made sure that all stakeholders understood that the quality of the evidence for treatment of this novel disease was much lower than our typical threshold to change practice, but that we aimed to reflect the best evidence to date. We also were careful to identify pathways that would be amenable to near-immediate implementation.

Our group reached consensus within 48 hours and quickly disseminated our first draft of the protocol (Appendix Figure). Dubbed the “Early Intervention Respiratory Protocol,” it differed from usual management in several ways. First, we had consistently observed (and confirmed from the literature) a phenotype of patients with “silent hypoxemia”⁹ (that is, a subset of patients who presented with profound hypoxemia but minimally increased work of breathing). The protocol encouraged tolerance of lower oxygen saturations than is usually seen on inpatient units. This required ensuring all stakeholders were comfortable with a target oxygen saturation of 88%. Second, the protocol leveraged early “awake” proning by patients. Historically, proning is used in mechanically ventilated patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) to improve ventilation-perfusion matching, promote more uniform ventilation, and increase end-expiratory lung volume.¹⁰ Prior literature was limited to the use of awake proning in small case series of ARDS, but given our limitations in terms of ICU capacity, we agreed to trial awake proning in a sizable proportion of our COVID-19 patients outside the ICU.^11,12 Finally, we clarified safe practices regarding the risk of aerosolization with noninvasive modalities. Local infection control determined that HFNC wa not aerosol generating, and use of surgical masks was added for further protection from respiratory droplets. In addition, airborne personal protective equipment was to be worn on the inpatient ward, and we used NIV sparingly and preferentially placed these patients in negative pressure rooms, if available.¹³

Implementation of the protocol involved aggressive dissemination and education (Table). A single-page protocol was designed for ease of use at the bedside that included anticipatory guidance regarding aerosolization and addressed potential resistance to awake proning because of concerns regarding safety and hassle. Departmental leaders disseminated the protocol throughout the institution with tailored education on the rationale and acknowledgment of a reversal in approach. In addition to email, we used text messaging (WhatsApp) and a comprehensive living document (Google Drive) to reach clinicians.

For ease of monitoring and safety, we designated a COVID-19 intermediate care unit. We partnered with the unit medical director, nurse educator, and a focused group of hospitalists, conducting individual train-the-trainer sessions. This training was carried forward, and all nurses, respiratory therapists, and clinicians were trained on the early aggressive respiratory protocol within 12 hours of protocol approval. In addition, the rapid response and critical care teams agreed to round on the COVID-19 intermediate care unit daily.

As a result of these efforts, adoption of the protocol was essentially immediate across the institution. We had shifted the mindset of a diverse group of clinicians regarding how to support the respiratory status of these patients, but also detected reductions in the proportion of patients undergoing IMV and ICU admission (we are planning to report these results separately).

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of having cognitive flexibility when the evidence base is rapidly changing and there is a need for rapid dissemination of knowledge. Even in clinical scenarios with an abundance of high-quality evidence, a gap in knowledge translation on the order of a decade often exists. In contrast, a pandemic involving a novel virus highlights an urgent need for adaptive knowledge translation in the present moment rather than a decade later. In the absence of robust evidence regarding SARS-CoV-2, early management of COVID-19 was based on expert recommendations and experience with other disease processes. Even so, we should anticipate that management paradigms may shift, and we should constantly seek out emerging evidence to adjust our mindset (and protocols like this) accordingly. Our original protocol was based on nearly nonexistent evidence, but we anticipated that, in a pandemic, data would accumulate quickly, so we prioritized rapid translation of new information into practice. In fact, further evidence has emerged regarding the improvement in oxygenation in COVID-19 patients with self-proning.¹⁴

The final step is evaluating the success of both clinical and implementation outcomes. We are attempting to identify changes in intubation, length of stay, days on ventilator, and days in ICU. In addition, we will measure feasibility and adaptability. We are also attempting, in real time, to identify barriers to its use, including conducting qualitative interviews to understand whether there were unintended consequences to use of the protocol. This endeavor highlights how the COVID-19 pandemic, for all its tragedy, may represent an important era for implementation science: a time when emerging literature from a variety of sources can be implemented in days rather than years.

My colleague asked, “Do you remember that patient?” I froze because, like most emergency physicians, this phrase haunts me. It was the early days of the COVID-19 epidemic, and the story that followed was upsetting. A patient who looked comfortable when I admitted him was intubated hours later by the rapid response team who was called to the floor. All I could think was, “But he looked so comfortable when I admitted him; he was just on a couple of liters of oxygen. Why was he intubated?”

In the days after COVID-19 arrived in our region, there were many such stories of patients sent to the floor from the Emergency Department who were intubated shortly after admission. Many of those patients subsequently endured prolonged and complicated courses on the ventilator. While we would typically use noninvasive modalities such as high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) or noninvasive ventilation (NIV) for acute respiratory failure, our quickness to intubate was driven by two factors: (1) early reports that noninvasive modalities posed a high risk of failure and subsequent intubation and (2) fear that HFNC and NIV would aerosolize SARS-CoV-2 and unnecessarily expose the heath care team.¹ We would soon find out that our thinking was flawed on both accounts.

When we dug into the evidence for early intubation, we realized that these recommendations were based on a 12-patient series in which 5 patients were trialed on NIV but ultimately intubated and placed on invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV). As the pandemic progressed, more case series and small studies were published, revealing a different picture.² Sun and colleagues reported a multifaceted intervention of 610 inpatients, of whom 10% were critically ill, that identified at-risk patients and used NIV or HFNC and awake proning. Reportedly, fewer than 1% required IMV.³ Similarly, a small study found intubation was avoided in 85% of patients with severe acute respiratory failure caused by COVID-19 with use of HFNC and NIV.⁴ Early findings from New York University in New York, New York, where only 8.5% of patients undergoing IMV were extubated by the time of outcome reporting, suggest early IMV could lead to poor outcomes.⁵

Still, we had concerns about use of HFNC and NIV because of worries about the health and safety of other patients and particularly that of healthcare workers (HCWs) because they have been disproportionately affected by the disease.⁶ Fortunately, we identified emerging data that revealed that HFNC is no more aerosolizing than low-flow nasal cannula or a non­rebreather mask and droplet spread is reduced with a surgical mask.^7,8 In light of these new studies and our own developing experience with the disease, we felt that there was insufficient evidence to continue following the “early intubation” protocol in patients with COVID-19. It was time for a new paradigm.

In order to effectively and quickly change our respiratory pathway for these patients, we initially sought out protocols from other institutions through social media. These protocols, supported by early data from those sites, informed our process. We considered data from various sources, including emergency medicine, hospital medicine, and critical care. We then assembled stakeholders within our organization from emergency medicine, hospital medicine, critical care, and respiratory therapy because our protocol would need endorsement from all key players within our organization who cared for these patients across the potential spectrum of care. We made sure that all stakeholders understood that the quality of the evidence for treatment of this novel disease was much lower than our typical threshold to change practice, but that we aimed to reflect the best evidence to date. We also were careful to identify pathways that would be amenable to near-immediate implementation.

Our group reached consensus within 48 hours and quickly disseminated our first draft of the protocol (Appendix Figure). Dubbed the “Early Intervention Respiratory Protocol,” it differed from usual management in several ways. First, we had consistently observed (and confirmed from the literature) a phenotype of patients with “silent hypoxemia”⁹ (that is, a subset of patients who presented with profound hypoxemia but minimally increased work of breathing). The protocol encouraged tolerance of lower oxygen saturations than is usually seen on inpatient units. This required ensuring all stakeholders were comfortable with a target oxygen saturation of 88%. Second, the protocol leveraged early “awake” proning by patients. Historically, proning is used in mechanically ventilated patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) to improve ventilation-perfusion matching, promote more uniform ventilation, and increase end-expiratory lung volume.¹⁰ Prior literature was limited to the use of awake proning in small case series of ARDS, but given our limitations in terms of ICU capacity, we agreed to trial awake proning in a sizable proportion of our COVID-19 patients outside the ICU.^11,12 Finally, we clarified safe practices regarding the risk of aerosolization with noninvasive modalities. Local infection control determined that HFNC wa not aerosol generating, and use of surgical masks was added for further protection from respiratory droplets. In addition, airborne personal protective equipment was to be worn on the inpatient ward, and we used NIV sparingly and preferentially placed these patients in negative pressure rooms, if available.¹³

Implementation of the protocol involved aggressive dissemination and education (Table). A single-page protocol was designed for ease of use at the bedside that included anticipatory guidance regarding aerosolization and addressed potential resistance to awake proning because of concerns regarding safety and hassle. Departmental leaders disseminated the protocol throughout the institution with tailored education on the rationale and acknowledgment of a reversal in approach. In addition to email, we used text messaging (WhatsApp) and a comprehensive living document (Google Drive) to reach clinicians.

For ease of monitoring and safety, we designated a COVID-19 intermediate care unit. We partnered with the unit medical director, nurse educator, and a focused group of hospitalists, conducting individual train-the-trainer sessions. This training was carried forward, and all nurses, respiratory therapists, and clinicians were trained on the early aggressive respiratory protocol within 12 hours of protocol approval. In addition, the rapid response and critical care teams agreed to round on the COVID-19 intermediate care unit daily.

As a result of these efforts, adoption of the protocol was essentially immediate across the institution. We had shifted the mindset of a diverse group of clinicians regarding how to support the respiratory status of these patients, but also detected reductions in the proportion of patients undergoing IMV and ICU admission (we are planning to report these results separately).

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of having cognitive flexibility when the evidence base is rapidly changing and there is a need for rapid dissemination of knowledge. Even in clinical scenarios with an abundance of high-quality evidence, a gap in knowledge translation on the order of a decade often exists. In contrast, a pandemic involving a novel virus highlights an urgent need for adaptive knowledge translation in the present moment rather than a decade later. In the absence of robust evidence regarding SARS-CoV-2, early management of COVID-19 was based on expert recommendations and experience with other disease processes. Even so, we should anticipate that management paradigms may shift, and we should constantly seek out emerging evidence to adjust our mindset (and protocols like this) accordingly. Our original protocol was based on nearly nonexistent evidence, but we anticipated that, in a pandemic, data would accumulate quickly, so we prioritized rapid translation of new information into practice. In fact, further evidence has emerged regarding the improvement in oxygenation in COVID-19 patients with self-proning.¹⁴

The final step is evaluating the success of both clinical and implementation outcomes. We are attempting to identify changes in intubation, length of stay, days on ventilator, and days in ICU. In addition, we will measure feasibility and adaptability. We are also attempting, in real time, to identify barriers to its use, including conducting qualitative interviews to understand whether there were unintended consequences to use of the protocol. This endeavor highlights how the COVID-19 pandemic, for all its tragedy, may represent an important era for implementation science: a time when emerging literature from a variety of sources can be implemented in days rather than years.

The page filled me with dread: “Your elderly patient is confused, getting out of bed, and threw her entire dinner tray at a nurse just now.” Because this morning my patient was polite and appropriate, the now-angry, dinner-splattered nurse means only one thing: delirium.

Delirium is one of the most difficult problems for hospitalists to manage, in part because our management of delirium is often learned on the fly during residency and early years of practice. This post-hoc approach toward delirium misses the most important aspect of treatment: Prevention.

Interventions like early mobilization, environmental interventions, careful oversight of drugs, hydration protocols, and reinforcing the day/night cycle are crucial. Unfortunately, few hospitals can provide these resources or the trained multidisciplinary team with geriatrics expertise to administer them. The result is that delirium occurs more frequently than it should, and hospitalists often face a patient who is a risk to themselves or others.

In this situation, antipsychotics (APs) are often prescribed. However, long term use of APs by elders is highly discouraged by many organizations, including the Society of Hospital Medicine, because of risks like cardiac events (e.g., QT prolongation), stroke, extrapyramidal symptoms, falls, somnolence, and increased mortality in older patients with dementia.

One unanswered question regarding the use of APs is whether starting the medications in the hospital results in long-term use. To answer this, we performed a retrospective study of 300 elderly hospitalized patients who were treated for the first time with APs during their hospitalization. Of these 300 patients, 10% died during that first hospitalization, and almost half (48%) remained on APs at discharge. We found that most of the prescriptions were to treat delirium (J Hosp Med. 2014 Dec;9[12]:802-4. doi:10.1002/jhm.2277).

In a more recent study, we looked at outcomes for patients discharged from Baystate Medical Center (Springfield, Mass.) on APs. Within a year of discharge, 40% of these patients were readmitted at least once and approximately two-thirds were still taking the same APs on which they had been discharged (J Hosp Med. 2016 Apr 6. doi: 10.1002/jhm.2585). Thus, if I start my patient described above (who threw the dinner tray) on an AP today, she is very likely to be readmitted the next year still taking that same medication. Starting an AP in the short term can lead to the very thing we have been warned against: long-term use of an AP in an elderly person.

Even more striking than the continuation rate was the incredibly high 1-year mortality rate. Of the 260 patients discharged from the original admission on an AP, one-third had died at the 1-year mark. This group of patients had a wide range of diagnoses, but nearly as many died as if they all had stage IV heart failure. Because most had an agitated delirium at the time of AP prescription, these findings suggest that onset of in-hospital delirium should trigger a closer examination of the patient’s current burden of illness, prognosis, functional and cognitive status, treatment options, and goals of care.

Prevention is key

Our study also supports the prevention of delirium as the most important strategy to improve patient outcomes. Since conducting this study, Baystate Medical Center has implemented an “ACE” (Acute Care for Elders) pilot project and will soon open a full ACE unit. This unit, which employs many of the behavioral interventions described above (early discharge planning, drug oversight, team-based care, early mobilization, optimizing vision and hearing, sleep-wake cycle preservation, and hydration) has resulted in declines in both delirium rates and use of APs. Use of restraints has been virtually eliminated.

Our ACE program was a combined effort between geriatrics, hospital medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and others, but hospitalists often lead acute care quality improvement (QI) initiatives, and are superbly positioned to champion programs like ACE, NICHE (Nurses Improving Care for Health System Elders), and HELP (Hospital Elder Life Program) to benefit this vulnerable population.

Some important questions about AP use remain unanswered. First, there is very limited clinical trial evidence that APs actually improve outcomes in patients with delirium. Second, our study fails to answer one all-important question: does long-term AP use increase mortality in elders? Prior studies are largely retrospective, and results have been mixed.

Our study highlights the difficulty of teasing apart the baseline risks of the patients, the risk of the medications themselves, and confounding variables. There may be an association between APs and death, but it is quite possible that patients who require APs are simply at higher risk of death independent of the drugs’ effect; this confounding by indication cannot be adjusted away.

This leaves hospitalists in a difficult position. At Baystate Medical Center, hospitalists have opted to focus on prevention, but when delirium occurs, some patients are still treated with APs. Clinicians reserve the medications for patients who are suffering and fail to respond to nonpharmacologic interventions or are a risk to themselves or others. Still, Baystate plans to reduce use even in this population by instituting behavioral response teams to devise nondrug care plans, and hospitalists are encouraged to avoid discharging patients on APs.

Finally, even though patients who require APs may lack a clear terminal diagnosis, we encourage clinicians to recognize that delirium should prompt a discussion of prognosis and clarification of values, goals, and realistic treatment options.

Dr. Loh is a fellow at the James Wilmot Cancer Center, University of Rochester (N.Y.) Medical Center. Dr. Brennan is chief of geriatrics and post-acute medicine at Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, Mass. Dr. Lagu is an academic hospitalist in the Center for Quality of Care Research at Baystate Medical Center.

The page filled me with dread: “Your elderly patient is confused, getting out of bed, and threw her entire dinner tray at a nurse just now.” Because this morning my patient was polite and appropriate, the now-angry, dinner-splattered nurse means only one thing: delirium.

Delirium is one of the most difficult problems for hospitalists to manage, in part because our management of delirium is often learned on the fly during residency and early years of practice. This post-hoc approach toward delirium misses the most important aspect of treatment: Prevention.

Interventions like early mobilization, environmental interventions, careful oversight of drugs, hydration protocols, and reinforcing the day/night cycle are crucial. Unfortunately, few hospitals can provide these resources or the trained multidisciplinary team with geriatrics expertise to administer them. The result is that delirium occurs more frequently than it should, and hospitalists often face a patient who is a risk to themselves or others.

In this situation, antipsychotics (APs) are often prescribed. However, long term use of APs by elders is highly discouraged by many organizations, including the Society of Hospital Medicine, because of risks like cardiac events (e.g., QT prolongation), stroke, extrapyramidal symptoms, falls, somnolence, and increased mortality in older patients with dementia.

One unanswered question regarding the use of APs is whether starting the medications in the hospital results in long-term use. To answer this, we performed a retrospective study of 300 elderly hospitalized patients who were treated for the first time with APs during their hospitalization. Of these 300 patients, 10% died during that first hospitalization, and almost half (48%) remained on APs at discharge. We found that most of the prescriptions were to treat delirium (J Hosp Med. 2014 Dec;9[12]:802-4. doi:10.1002/jhm.2277).

In a more recent study, we looked at outcomes for patients discharged from Baystate Medical Center (Springfield, Mass.) on APs. Within a year of discharge, 40% of these patients were readmitted at least once and approximately two-thirds were still taking the same APs on which they had been discharged (J Hosp Med. 2016 Apr 6. doi: 10.1002/jhm.2585). Thus, if I start my patient described above (who threw the dinner tray) on an AP today, she is very likely to be readmitted the next year still taking that same medication. Starting an AP in the short term can lead to the very thing we have been warned against: long-term use of an AP in an elderly person.

Even more striking than the continuation rate was the incredibly high 1-year mortality rate. Of the 260 patients discharged from the original admission on an AP, one-third had died at the 1-year mark. This group of patients had a wide range of diagnoses, but nearly as many died as if they all had stage IV heart failure. Because most had an agitated delirium at the time of AP prescription, these findings suggest that onset of in-hospital delirium should trigger a closer examination of the patient’s current burden of illness, prognosis, functional and cognitive status, treatment options, and goals of care.

Prevention is key

Our study also supports the prevention of delirium as the most important strategy to improve patient outcomes. Since conducting this study, Baystate Medical Center has implemented an “ACE” (Acute Care for Elders) pilot project and will soon open a full ACE unit. This unit, which employs many of the behavioral interventions described above (early discharge planning, drug oversight, team-based care, early mobilization, optimizing vision and hearing, sleep-wake cycle preservation, and hydration) has resulted in declines in both delirium rates and use of APs. Use of restraints has been virtually eliminated.

Our ACE program was a combined effort between geriatrics, hospital medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and others, but hospitalists often lead acute care quality improvement (QI) initiatives, and are superbly positioned to champion programs like ACE, NICHE (Nurses Improving Care for Health System Elders), and HELP (Hospital Elder Life Program) to benefit this vulnerable population.

Some important questions about AP use remain unanswered. First, there is very limited clinical trial evidence that APs actually improve outcomes in patients with delirium. Second, our study fails to answer one all-important question: does long-term AP use increase mortality in elders? Prior studies are largely retrospective, and results have been mixed.

Our study highlights the difficulty of teasing apart the baseline risks of the patients, the risk of the medications themselves, and confounding variables. There may be an association between APs and death, but it is quite possible that patients who require APs are simply at higher risk of death independent of the drugs’ effect; this confounding by indication cannot be adjusted away.

This leaves hospitalists in a difficult position. At Baystate Medical Center, hospitalists have opted to focus on prevention, but when delirium occurs, some patients are still treated with APs. Clinicians reserve the medications for patients who are suffering and fail to respond to nonpharmacologic interventions or are a risk to themselves or others. Still, Baystate plans to reduce use even in this population by instituting behavioral response teams to devise nondrug care plans, and hospitalists are encouraged to avoid discharging patients on APs.

Finally, even though patients who require APs may lack a clear terminal diagnosis, we encourage clinicians to recognize that delirium should prompt a discussion of prognosis and clarification of values, goals, and realistic treatment options.

Dr. Loh is a fellow at the James Wilmot Cancer Center, University of Rochester (N.Y.) Medical Center. Dr. Brennan is chief of geriatrics and post-acute medicine at Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, Mass. Dr. Lagu is an academic hospitalist in the Center for Quality of Care Research at Baystate Medical Center.

The page filled me with dread: “Your elderly patient is confused, getting out of bed, and threw her entire dinner tray at a nurse just now.” Because this morning my patient was polite and appropriate, the now-angry, dinner-splattered nurse means only one thing: delirium.

Delirium is one of the most difficult problems for hospitalists to manage, in part because our management of delirium is often learned on the fly during residency and early years of practice. This post-hoc approach toward delirium misses the most important aspect of treatment: Prevention.

Interventions like early mobilization, environmental interventions, careful oversight of drugs, hydration protocols, and reinforcing the day/night cycle are crucial. Unfortunately, few hospitals can provide these resources or the trained multidisciplinary team with geriatrics expertise to administer them. The result is that delirium occurs more frequently than it should, and hospitalists often face a patient who is a risk to themselves or others.

In this situation, antipsychotics (APs) are often prescribed. However, long term use of APs by elders is highly discouraged by many organizations, including the Society of Hospital Medicine, because of risks like cardiac events (e.g., QT prolongation), stroke, extrapyramidal symptoms, falls, somnolence, and increased mortality in older patients with dementia.

One unanswered question regarding the use of APs is whether starting the medications in the hospital results in long-term use. To answer this, we performed a retrospective study of 300 elderly hospitalized patients who were treated for the first time with APs during their hospitalization. Of these 300 patients, 10% died during that first hospitalization, and almost half (48%) remained on APs at discharge. We found that most of the prescriptions were to treat delirium (J Hosp Med. 2014 Dec;9[12]:802-4. doi:10.1002/jhm.2277).

In a more recent study, we looked at outcomes for patients discharged from Baystate Medical Center (Springfield, Mass.) on APs. Within a year of discharge, 40% of these patients were readmitted at least once and approximately two-thirds were still taking the same APs on which they had been discharged (J Hosp Med. 2016 Apr 6. doi: 10.1002/jhm.2585). Thus, if I start my patient described above (who threw the dinner tray) on an AP today, she is very likely to be readmitted the next year still taking that same medication. Starting an AP in the short term can lead to the very thing we have been warned against: long-term use of an AP in an elderly person.

Even more striking than the continuation rate was the incredibly high 1-year mortality rate. Of the 260 patients discharged from the original admission on an AP, one-third had died at the 1-year mark. This group of patients had a wide range of diagnoses, but nearly as many died as if they all had stage IV heart failure. Because most had an agitated delirium at the time of AP prescription, these findings suggest that onset of in-hospital delirium should trigger a closer examination of the patient’s current burden of illness, prognosis, functional and cognitive status, treatment options, and goals of care.

Prevention is key

Our study also supports the prevention of delirium as the most important strategy to improve patient outcomes. Since conducting this study, Baystate Medical Center has implemented an “ACE” (Acute Care for Elders) pilot project and will soon open a full ACE unit. This unit, which employs many of the behavioral interventions described above (early discharge planning, drug oversight, team-based care, early mobilization, optimizing vision and hearing, sleep-wake cycle preservation, and hydration) has resulted in declines in both delirium rates and use of APs. Use of restraints has been virtually eliminated.

Our ACE program was a combined effort between geriatrics, hospital medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and others, but hospitalists often lead acute care quality improvement (QI) initiatives, and are superbly positioned to champion programs like ACE, NICHE (Nurses Improving Care for Health System Elders), and HELP (Hospital Elder Life Program) to benefit this vulnerable population.

Some important questions about AP use remain unanswered. First, there is very limited clinical trial evidence that APs actually improve outcomes in patients with delirium. Second, our study fails to answer one all-important question: does long-term AP use increase mortality in elders? Prior studies are largely retrospective, and results have been mixed.

Our study highlights the difficulty of teasing apart the baseline risks of the patients, the risk of the medications themselves, and confounding variables. There may be an association between APs and death, but it is quite possible that patients who require APs are simply at higher risk of death independent of the drugs’ effect; this confounding by indication cannot be adjusted away.

This leaves hospitalists in a difficult position. At Baystate Medical Center, hospitalists have opted to focus on prevention, but when delirium occurs, some patients are still treated with APs. Clinicians reserve the medications for patients who are suffering and fail to respond to nonpharmacologic interventions or are a risk to themselves or others. Still, Baystate plans to reduce use even in this population by instituting behavioral response teams to devise nondrug care plans, and hospitalists are encouraged to avoid discharging patients on APs.

Finally, even though patients who require APs may lack a clear terminal diagnosis, we encourage clinicians to recognize that delirium should prompt a discussion of prognosis and clarification of values, goals, and realistic treatment options.

Dr. Loh is a fellow at the James Wilmot Cancer Center, University of Rochester (N.Y.) Medical Center. Dr. Brennan is chief of geriatrics and post-acute medicine at Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, Mass. Dr. Lagu is an academic hospitalist in the Center for Quality of Care Research at Baystate Medical Center.