Ochsner Health is a system that delivers health to the people of Louisiana, Mississippi and the Gulf South with a mission to Serve, Heal, Lead, Educate and Innovate.
Ochsner Journal Fall Issue Showcases Outstanding Work
RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 1, 2020
In the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak in New Orleans, leaders at Ochsner needed to know what resources would be required to respond effectively to the unprecedented infectious disease epidemic that threatened to overwhelm all area hospitals in a few short weeks. But in the face of so much uncertainty—so many unknowns!—how could bed and ventilator needs be reliably estimated?
The answer: statistical modeling.
In “Locally Informed Modeling to Predict Hospital and Intensive Care Unit Capacity During the COVID-19 Epidemic”—published in the fall issue of the Ochsner Journal—staff from Ochsner’s Center for Outcomes and Health Services Research explain how they did it and how well it worked. Spoiler alert: the model was spot-on.
Another exceptional example of Ochsner work showcased in the fall issue of the Journal is a video introduction to cardiopulmonary bypass surgery developed by vascular surgeon Dr. Gene Parrino and Ochsner’s Creative Media team. To test the educational value of the video, Ochsner Clinical School medical student Michael Tseng and Dean of Students Dr. Dodd Denton developed and conducted a small study involving third-year medical students during their surgery rotation. Their paper reports the results of the study and includes a link to the video.
In addition to these standout papers, the fall issue includes four additional original research articles, our quarterly Clinical Images and Sports Medicine columns, an editorial promoting a mandatory rotation in anesthesiology during medical school, and two quality improvement papers (one about reducing unnecessary hepatitis testing and one exploring the proper amount of charting in the ED). On top of that, the issue also includes 11 case reports that present a fascinating array of conditions that make intriguing reading.
