BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Among the unique challenges for parents in the transition of infant care from neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) to home are the medical complexity of their babies and the psychological burden of caring for this special patient population. Despite the increased use and accessibility of smartphones, mobile applications (apps) intended for use by families during this transition remain underdeveloped and understudied. Apps to support parents of infants in the NICU represent an accessible potential solution to mitigate existing disparities in follow up. Through this Narrative Review, we intend to describe the characteristics of and development process for apps intended to address the challenges parents with NICU babies may face, and to provide recommendations for further development of apps for this purpose. METHODS: We conducted a review of articles published between November 2012 to November 2022. This search spanned three major databases, PubMed, Embase, and CINAHL, using a controlled vocabulary and keywords for mobile apps and the NICU. These three databases generated 473 articles for review. Utilizing the online primary screening and data extraction tool Covidence, we ultimately included eight articles in this narrative review. KEY CONTENT AND FINDINGS: There are few existing mobile apps intended to ease the transition home for parents of babies in the NICU. There are even fewer apps that have been critically evaluated using acceptable methods and produced with contribution from healthcare practitioners. Among the existing articles on app solutions to benefit education and socioemotional support for parents, many emphasized the importance of including key stakeholders during the app development process and highlighted both qualitative and quantitative measures for assessing relative success of these apps in a clinical setting. CONCLUSIONS: Although the experiences of parents with infants admitted to the NICU have been well-studied, there remain relatively few existing apps to provide educational and socioemotional support to this population. Future studies should focus on an iterative process of app development whereby both parents and providers are closely involved, in combination with critical appraisal of the app to assess for appropriate support and education of caregivers.

Background

Alcoholic Hepatitis (AH) is major source of alcohol-related mortality and health care expenditures in the United States. There is insufficient information regarding the role of race and ethnicity on healthcare utilization and outcomes for patients with AH. We aimed to determine whether there are racial/ethnic differences in resource utilization and inpatient mortality in patients hospitalized with AH.

Methods

We analyzed data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS), years 2008-2011. We calculated demographic, clinical, and healthcare utilization characteristics by race. We then performed logistic regression and generalized linear modeling with gamma distribution (log link), respectively, to determine predictors of inpatient morality and total hospital costs (THC).

Results

We identified 11,304 AH patients from 2008 to 2011. Mean age was 47.0 years, and 62.1 % were male, 61.9 % were white, 9.8 % were black, and 9.7 % were Hispanic. Mean LOS was 6.3 days and significantly longer in whites (6.5 d) than both blacks (5.4 d) and Hispanics (5.9 d). In adjusted models, inpatient mortality was lower for blacks than for whites (adj. OR = 0.50; 95 % CI = 0.32-0.78). THC was significantly higher for Hispanics than whites (fold increase = 1.25; 95 % CI = 1.01-1.49).

Conclusions

We identified differences in healthcare utilization and mortality by race/ethnicity. THC was significantly higher among Hispanics than for whites and blacks. We also demonstrated lower inpatient mortality in blacks compared to whites. These variations may implicate racial and ethnic differences in access to care, quality of care, severity of AH on presentation, or other factors.