Implementation, the adoption of research findings in clinicians’ everyday practice, can be the Achilles’s heel of health care advancements and improvement in patients’ outcomes.
The slow uptake of evidence-based therapies, techniques, and preventive strategies has been a concern of the NHLBI’s Division of Lung Diseases (DLD) for the better part of its 50 years.
That’s why it began to fund research to understand the barriers to implementing crucial research findings that have been shown to reduce mortality, prevent worsening symptoms, and improve quality of life.
For instance, despite its efficacy, low tidal volume ventilation (LTVV) remains severely underutilized for patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). And following the asthma guidelines, proven effective by multiple studies, is spotty at best.
DLD’s funding of the Asthma Care Implementation Programs (ACIPs), the Asthma Empowerment Collaborations to Reduce Childhood Asthma Disparities, and the ARDS Network (ARDSnet) has contributed to speeding up translation of evidence from clinical trials into clinical practice, and community health.
Deep sedation and paralysis no better in ARDS patients on ventilation
Researchers funded by NHLBI found that patients with moderate-to-severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) receiving mechanical ventilation saw no added benefit from deep sedation and paralysis. The findings appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that light sedation with intermittent, short-term paralysis if necessary was just as effective in preventing death.
A chaotic household, depression linked to poor asthma control in children
An NHLBI-funded study found that asthma outcomes among urban minority children can be worsened by a chaotic, noisy household where it is hard to relax. The research, published in the journal Pediatrics, also singles out depression of both, children and parents as a risk factor for poor child asthma control.
Study backs recommended threshold for diagnosing COPD
An NHLBI-funded study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association provided evidence to support a simple measurement for diagnosing clinically significant airflow obstruction, the key characteristic of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the fourth leading cause of death in the United States.
Access to care, environmental factors linked to racial disparities in asthma
An NHLBI-funded study, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, found that persistent racial disparities in asthma can largely be explained by socioeconomic and environmental factors, such as access to healthcare and housing conditions.