Unity Health Toronto

Strategies for Handling Missing Serum Lactate When Identifying Septic Shock in ICU Databases: A Plasmode Simulation Study in Alberta ICUs and MIMIC-IV

Septic shock is defined by a serum lactate of 2 mmol/L or more measured around the time of suspected infection, but ICU databases often lack a lactate in that window. Studies exclude such patients, use a value measured at another time, predict it or impute it, and the choice chan...

Disparities in Heat-Related Injuries Among People Experiencing Homelessness

This cohort study examines whether people experiencing homelessness in Ontario, Canada, have higher rates of heat-related injury than people not experiencing homelessness.

Reconsidering the Alberta study of the closure of the Red Deer supervised consumption site

Supervised consumption sites (SCS) are interventions supported by decades of evidence and yet remain subject to considerable politicization. Recently, researchers from Alberta, Canada published a study in the journal Addiction that sought to assess the impacts of the closure of a...

Balancing data quality and participant burden: a comparative analysis of abbreviated vs extended symptom diaries in the CanTreatCOVID trial

Abstract Background Symptom diaries are widely used in acute respiratory infection trials to capture patient-reported symptom severity and recovery. Longer questionnaires may provide a more complete clinical picture but can increase participant burden and reduce adherence. Eviden...

Raising the bar: translating global guidelines to achieve local policy on cholera elimination in Zambia—a qualitative case study

Abstract Background The global roadmap to eliminating cholera by 2030 relies on early detection and response, vaccination in hotspots and effective partnerships. In sub-Saharan Africa, where 60% of the 2.8 million annual cases occur, cholera elimination requires a multisectoral r...

Leveraging prompt-driven generative AI for systematic reviews in digital psychiatry: A stage-matched comparative proof-of-concept for healthcare researchers and clinicians

The scale and pace of evidence generation in digital psychiatry increasingly exceed the capacity of traditional systematic literature review (SLR) methods. Large language models (LLMs) are gaining traction in evidence synthesis, yet limited guidance exists for integrating generat...

“As soon as it’s trying to be persuasive, my skepticism kicks in”: A qualitative study to co-design vaccine communication strategies with vaccine hesitant adults in Canada

Vaccine hesitancy continues to impede vaccine uptake in Canada. Few interventions directly engage hesitant adults in co-designing communication materials. This study aimed to co-develop and evaluate digital vaccine communication messages with hesitant adults in Canada to improve...

Considerations for optimal team-based rheumatology care: a qualitative study exploring the experiences of rheumatology health professionals

Interdisciplinary team-based rheumatology care models are a promising solution for improving access to high quality, equitable care for people with rheumatic and musculoskeletal disorders. There is limited understanding on health professionals’ perspectives on their needs to deli...