Coronavirus thread

[Tod-13]

Is there a strict definition for what constitutes "elective procedure"?

Yes. An elective procedure is a pre-scheduled non-emergency procedure not required to save the patient's life.

Schwarzenegger's open heart surgery a while back was erroneously called "elective". It was "semi-elective", since it was needed to save his life long-term, but wasn't an immediate emergency.

*disclaimer: I'm a well-read software developer/bioinformatician, not a doctor or medical coder.

ETA: Disclaimer was useful, as witnessed by the reply posted while I was typing. I guess it shows how software developers that support research/domain experts consider "strict definitions".

[Chance]

Not really, not in this situation. Ordinarily everything that's not emergent (immediate time frame) or urgent (within day-two) is elective. With the COVID and attempts to minimize non-urgent stuff and push the elective stuff out by 2 months this definition is breaking down.

My wife is an OR nurse at a small surgical center, and that's basically what she was hearing through the grapevine. All the major hospital systems here seem to agree that cancelling elective procedures is a good idea, but no one seems to agree what actually constitutes "elective" under these circumstances.

[YVK]

ETA: Disclaimer was useful, as witnessed by the reply posted while I was typing. I guess it shows how software developers that support research/domain experts consider "strict definitions".

You actually were totally correct. Elective or planned under normal circumstances is a heterogeneous group. A coronary bypass can be a planned surgery with a couple of weeks delay, and valve surgery often times can be delayed longer, but it's different from a planned knee replacement.

[TGS]

Anyone else seeing a massive decrease in call quality for Skype today? We've been using it for language school without issue, and today it's been terrible.

[Doc_Glock]

Listening to surgery podcast today. Doc from Texas Tech describes how they were saving surgical supplies only to have some dirtbag break in to supply rooms and ransack them.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000468637789

I hate this world at times. Never in my wildest thoughts would it occur to me that a hospital supply room would get robbed. But that is why I am in medicine not law enforcement.

[Sensei]

I need a refresher. I was under impression that the in hospital arrest had a worse prognosis.

There has been a trend toward improved outcomes over the past decade. Table 2 illustrates this trend:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art.../#!po=0.505051

Much of that improvement is driven by studies from Asia that may not be applicable to the US. I think that the all-cause survival to discharge with good neuro recovery from in-hospital is probably on the lower end of that spectrum (ie closer to 20%) in the US.

https://www.dicardiology.com/article...ights-weekends

[GJM]

Is there any data on the ease of transmission of the virus in an outdoor setting vs indoors?

[YVK]

We just had a 5.7 magnitude quake. Can you believe it? Literally last thing we need.

[Chance]

Anyone else seeing a massive decrease in call quality for Skype today? We've been using it for language school without issue, and today it's been terrible.

A number of video chat / conference systems are suffering from degraded performance right now, including Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

[farscott]

Anyone else seeing a massive decrease in call quality for Skype today? We've been using it for language school without issue, and today it's been terrible.

Yes, I am on a multi-continent call now and the call quality is varying from moment to moment.