5 articles found
A Three-Pillar Approach to Benefit Enrollment Reaches Underserved Communities
Background. The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), established in 2021, provided eligible low-income households a monthly $30 internet subsidy. Despite its role in reducing digital disparities, only 40% of eligible households enrolled nationally. Link Health (LH), a Boston-based grassroots initiative, implemented a three-pillar (active, passive, and digital) outreach model to increase ACP uptake in Massachusetts and Texas.
Methods. From November 2022 to May 2024, LH partnered with community health centers in Boston and Houston to deliver on-site sign-up clinics (active approach), distribute multilingual printed materials (passive approach), and provide personalized text-message support (digital approach). Multilingual volunteers led screening and application filing, with follow-up via a dedicated helpline. Enrollment data were collected across 17 clinics and analyzed descriptively.
Results. Of approximately 9,774 individuals screened, 1,086 (11.1%) enrolled in the ACP. Enrollees were predominantly racial/ethnic minorities (78.9%), with 55.4% Hispanic/Latinx and 23.5% Black/African American. 68.4% of enrollees qualified for the ACP through current Medicaid enrollment, and 29.2% qualified through current SNAP enrollment. Digital sign-ups constituted 33.8% of enrollments. LH’s efforts distributed an estimated $390,960 in annual subsidies.
Conclusion. LH’s community-driven, three-pillar strategy bridged barriers to ACP enrollment. This model may inform future initiatives aimed at closing the digital divide and advancing health equity through targeted benefit enrollment.Leveraging Network Analysis for Global Connectivity in Emergency Medicine
Introduction: In the field of international emergency medicine (IEM), navigating the vast and often fragmented online resources can be a challenge. This abstract explores how network analysis, a method examining connections within a system, can be applied to improve online accessibility and navigability of these resources. By focusing on the International Federation for Emergency Medicine (IFEM), the study aims to utilize network analysis to understand the current digital landscape of IEM stakeholders and their connections. This will ultimately lead to recommendations for improved information sharing within the IEM community.
Methods: We focused our data collection on the IFEM website (www.ifem.cc), a central node connected to global emergency medicine organizations. Using an automated network analysis pipeline, we crawled the IFEM website to three levels deep with the Screaming Frog SEO Spider tool, mapping its structure and extracting pertinent data. The BeautifulSoup library was then used to parse the HTML content, while the Gemini 1.0 Pro language model helped filter and identify relevant information about global emergency medicine organizations. This results were then compared with the official IFEM member list for validation. Finally, Geographical details were pinpointed using the Geopy library and Nominatim tool to convert names and countries into exact coordinates. An interactive global map of these organizations was created with the Folium library, enhancing our understanding of the global emergency medicine network and its interconnections.
Results: We identified 4,775 external links, narrowing down to 156 unique base URLs for further content analysis. On the IFEM website, of 55 countries listed, only 41 had accessible links; 10 were non-functional, and 3 were missing. Our automated pipeline pinpointed 41 pertinent multilingual URLs from the available ones, achieving 100% accuracy rate. Our analysis also revealed 28 additional URLs, potentially linked to EM organizations not listed on their member page.
Conclusion: By leveraging an automated network analysis pipeline, we gained valuable insights into the digital connections between emergency medicine organizations. This approach not only identified key organizations and their connections but also potentially improved the accessibility and navigation of online information in emergency medicineLipidLlama: A Multilingual AI Chatbot for Personalized Cardiovascular Risk Assessment
Background
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. Many patients with cardiovascular disease struggle to understand their risk factors and medical test results due to health literacy limitations and/or inadequate resources for personalized education. Existing digital solutions often provide generic, one-size-fits-all information with varying degrees of medical accuracy.
Methods
LipidLlama addresses this gap by integrating a rule-based AI system—adapted from a validated cardiovascular risk assessment tool—and a chatbot powered by a Large Language Model (LLM) enhanced with retrieval augmented generation (RAG). To improve document retrieval, a custom query-only adapter was trained on synthetic query corpus document pairs. Response quality was independently evaluated by three board-certified physicians (two cardiologists and one internist) who rated 30 responses to synthetically generated, realistic patient queries using a 5-point Likert scale across four dimensions: correctness, conciseness, comprehensiveness, and comprehensibility. Rater reliability was assessed using generalizability theory.
Results
The trained adapter improved top-k document retrieval accuracy from 67% to 80%. Responses received consistently high clinical ratings across all dimensions (mean composite score = 18.21, 95% CI: 17.80-18.62) and demonstrated strong reliability metrics across raters (generalizability coefficient E⍴² = 0.88; dependability coefficient Φ = 0.84).
Conclusion
LipidLlama provides clinically grounded, personalized explanations in response to cardiovascular health questions. With further clinical validation, this mobile health application has the potential to enhance health literacy and minimize provider burden, significantly improving access to preventive cardiovascular care, particularly in underserved communities.
Transforming Emergency Care: Scalable Clinical Audit Innovations for Emerging Markets
Resource constraints, staff brain drain, operational inefficiencies, and incidents of workplace violence undermine emergency care outcomes in emerging markets. The Emergency and Trauma Excellence (EmTEx) framework, a structured and human-centered approach, was implemented at Evercare Hospital Lahore to address these systemic challenges. A two-day clinical audit, led by a senior emergency physician, pediatrician, and innovation consultant, evaluated resuscitation readiness, triage efficiency, infection control, staffing adequacy, and staff safety using JCIA-inspired checklists, staff interviews, and facility walkthroughs. Findings revealed insufficient resuscitation spaces, poor separation of pediatric and adult patients, inconsistent triage protocols during peak hours, staffing shortages, and reports of aggression toward healthcare staff during high patient volumes of up to 190 daily. Additional gaps in infection control practices and variability in triage accuracy highlighted operational inefficiencies. Recommendations included tablet-based triage systems for real-time data capture, enhanced isolation zones for infection control, structured staff training programs, and robust safety measures such as de-escalation training and security protocols. Projected outcomes include a 20–30% reduction in patient wait times, improved workflows, and enhanced staff safety and engagement. These findings underscore the scalability of the EmTEx framework, demonstrating its ability to deliver empathy-driven solutions for transforming emergency care in resource-limited settings.Evaluating Pediatric Healthcare Spaces: Evidence-Based Recommendations for Design and Engagement
Background
Hospital environments significantly impact pediatric patients’ physical and emotional well-being. However, conventional hospital designs often fail to integrate child-friendly engagement strategies, leading to increased anxiety, reduced caregiver satisfaction, and operational inefficiencies. The HackPeds clinical audit, grounded in a continuous quality improvement framework, evaluated pediatric healthcare spaces at Evercare Hospital Lahore to identify systemic gaps and implement targeted interventions over a structured audit cycle.
Methods
A two-phase clinical audit was conducted at Evercare Hospital Lahore, with an initial assessment in November 2024, followed by a structured re-audit in January 2025, allowing for approximately three months of intervention implementation. The assessment was inspired by Joint Commission International and similar global pediatric care standards while also incorporating human-centered design principles. A checklist-based facility evaluation, structured staff interviews, and real-time benchmarking against best practices were used. The auditor, a pediatrician, emergency medicine consultant, and health innovation expert, assessed spatial utilization, caregiver engagement, and pediatric emergency preparedness, among other factors.
Results
The initial audit identified underutilized pediatric spaces, lack of interactive play zones, inconsistent emergency preparedness, and inadequate staff training in play therapy. Over the three-month intervention period, structured play areas were introduced, pediatric emergency response protocols were strengthened, and caregiver education initiatives were expanded. The January 2025 re-audit showed improvements in the use of engagement spaces, staff preparedness, and caregiver participation in pediatric care activities, although gaps remained in optimizing space utilization and embedding structured storytelling interventions.
Conclusion
By embedding continuous quality improvement strategies and structured re-audit cycles, HackPeds provides a scalable framework for pediatric healthcare transformation. The model is positioned for multi-site validation across Evercare Group hospitals in Nigeria and Kenya, with potential for broader adaptation in global pediatric healthcare settings. Future audits will assess longitudinal impact and sustainability to optimize pediatric patient experience, caregiver engagement, and emergency preparedness.
Keywords: Pediatric hospital design, clinical audit, quality improvement, human-centered design, play therapy, storytelling in healthcare, pediatric emergency care, caregiver engagement, healthcare innovation, global health scalability.
