Browsing by Author "Southern, Danielle"

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    Cost analysis and efficacy of recruitment strategies used in a large pragmatic community-based clinical trial targeting low-income seniors: a comparative descriptive analysis
    (2019-10-07) Kakumanu, Sravya; Manns, Braden J; Tran, Sophia; Saunders-Smith, Terry; Hemmelgarn, Brenda R; Tonelli, Marcello; Tsuyuki, Ross; Ivers, Noah; Southern, Danielle; Bakal, Jeff; Campbell, David J T
    Abstract Objective One of the most challenging parts of running clinical trials is recruiting enough participants. Our objective was to determine which recruitment strategies were effective in reaching specific subgroups. Study design and setting We assessed the efficacy and costs of the recruitment strategies used in the Assessing Outcomes of Enhanced Chronic Disease Care Through Patient Education and a Value-based Formulary Study (ACCESS) in Alberta, Canada. Results Twenty percent of the study budget ($354,330 CAD) was spent on recruiting 4013 participants, giving an average cost per enrolled of $88 CAD. Pharmacies recruited the most participants (n = 1217), at a cost of $128/enrolled. ”Paid media” had the highest cost ($806/enrolled), whereas ”word of mouth” and ”unpaid media” had the lowest (~$3/enrolled). Participants enrolled from ”seniors outreach” had the lowest baseline quality of life and income, while participants from ”word of mouth” had the lowest educational attainment. Conclusion The ”health care providers” strategies were especially successful — at a moderate cost per enrolled. The "media" strategies were less effective, short lasting, and more costly. No strategy was singularly effective in recruiting our targeted groups, emphasizing the importance of utilizing a variety of strategies to reach recruitment goals. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02579655 . Registered on 19 October 2015.
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    Developing a Data Integrated COVID-19 Tracking System for Decision-Making and Public Use
    (International Journal of Popular Data Science, 2020-09-28) Krusina, Alexander; Chen, Oscar; Otero Varela, Lucia; Doktorchik, Chelsea; Avati, Vince; Knudsen, Søren; Southern, Danielle; Eastwood, Cathy; Sharma, Nishan; Williamson, Tyler
    Introduction The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic unveiled a strong need for advanced and informative surveillance tools. The Centre for Health Informatics (CHI) at the University of Calgary took action to develop a surveillance dashboard, which would facilitate the education of the public, and answer critical questions posed by local and national government. Objectives The objective of this study was to create an interactive method of surveillance, or a “COVID-19 Tracker” for Canadian use. The Tracker offers user-friendly graphics characterizing various aspects of the current pandemic (e.g. case count, testing, hospitalizations, and policy interventions). Methods Six publicly available data sources were used, and were selected based on the frequency of updates, accuracy and types of data, and data presentation. The datasets have different levels of granularity for different provinces, which limits the information that we are able to show. Additionally, some datasets have missing entries, for which the “last observation carried forward” method was used. The website was created and hosted online, with a backend server, which is updated on a daily basis. The Tracker development followed an iterative process, as new figures were added to meet the changing needs of policy-makers. Results The resulting Tracker is a dashboard that visualizes real-time data, along with policy interventions from various countries, via user-friendly graphs with a hover option that reveals detailed information. The interactive features allow the user to customize the figures by jurisdiction, country/region, and the type of data shown. Data is displayed at the national and provincial level, as well as by health regions. Conclusions The COVID-19 Tracker offers real-time, detailed, and interactive visualizations that have the potential to shape crucial decision-making and inform Albertans and Canadians of the current pandemic.
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    Hospital ward design and prevention of hospital-acquired infections: A prospective clinical trial
    (2014-01-01) Ellison, Jennifer; Southern, Danielle; Holton, Donna; Henderson, Elizabeth; Wallace, Jean; Faris, Peter; Ghali, William A; Conly, John
    BACKGROUND: Renovation of a general medical ward provided an opportunity to study health care facility design as a factor for preventing hospital-acquired infections.OBJECTIVE: To determine whether a hospital ward designed with predominantly single rooms was associated with lower event rates of hospital-acquired infection and colonization.METHODS: A prospective controlled trial with patient allocation incorporating randomness was designed with outcomes on multiple ‘historic design’ wards (mainly four-bed rooms with shared bathrooms) compared with outcomes on a newly renovated ‘new design’ ward (predominantly single rooms with private bathrooms).RESULTS: Using Poisson regression analysis and adjusting for time at risk, there were no differences (P=0.18) in the primary outcome (2.96 versus 1.85 events/1000 patient-days, respectively). After adjustment for age, sex, Charlson score, admitted from care facility, previous hospitalization within six months, isolation requirement and the duration on antibiotics, the incidence rate ratio was 1.44 (95% CI 0.71 to 2.94) for the new design versus the historic design wards. A restricted analysis on the numbers of events occurring in single-bed versus multibed wings within the new design ward revealed an event incidence density of 1.89 versus 3.47 events/1000 patient-days, respectively (P=0.18), and an incidence rate ratio of 0.54 (95% CI 0.15 to 1.30).CONCLUSIONS: No difference in the incidence density of hospital-acquired infections or colonizations was observed for medical patients admitted to a new design ward versus historic design wards. A restricted analysis of events occurring in single-bed versus multibed wings suggests that ward design warrants further study.