Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34952728›Full record

ArticleAnnals of emergency medicine2022

The Utility of a Novel Definition of Health Care Regions in the United States in the Era of COVID-19: A Validation of the Pittsburgh Atlas Using Pneumonia Admissions.

Michael K Dalton, Ashley L Miller, Regan W Bergmark, Robert Semco, Cheryl K Zogg, Eric Goralnick, Molly P Jarman

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Annals of emergency medicine, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Alternative Approaches to Characterizing Disparate Care by Race, Ethnicity, and Insurance Between Hospitals.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Michael K DaltonCenter for Surgery and Public Health, Harvard Medical School, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA; Department of Surgery, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Newark, NJ.
Ashley L MillerDivision of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Boston, MA.
Regan W BergmarkCenter for Surgery and Public Health, Harvard Medical School, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA; Division of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA.
Robert SemcoCenter for Surgery and Public Health, Harvard Medical School, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA.
Cheryl K ZoggCenter for Surgery and Public Health, Harvard Medical School, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA; Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT.
Eric GoralnickCenter for Surgery and Public Health, Harvard Medical School, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA; Department of Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA.
Molly P JarmanCenter for Surgery and Public Health, Harvard Medical School, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA. Electronic address: mjarman@bwh.harvard.edu.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

STUDY

objectiveThe COVID-19 pandemic in the United States has underscored the need to understand health care in a regional context. However, there are multiple definitions of health care regions available for conducting geospatial analyses. In this study, we compare the novel Pittsburgh Atlas, which defined regions for emergency care, with the existing definitions of regions, counties, and the Dartmouth Atlas, with respect to nonemergent acute medical conditions using pneumonia admissions.

methodsWe identified patients hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of pneumonia or a primary admitting diagnosis of sepsis with a secondary diagnosis of pneumonia in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's State Inpatient Databases. We calculated the percentage of region concordant care, the localization index, and market share for 3 definitions of health care regions (the Pittsburgh Atlas, Dartmouth Atlas, and counties). We used logistic regression identified predictors of region concordant care.

resultsWe identified 1,582,287 patients who met the inclusion criteria. We found that the Pittsburgh Atlas and Dartmouth Atlas definitions of regions performed similarly with respect to both localization index (92.0 [interquartile range 87.9 to 95.7] versus 90.3 [interquartile range 81.4 to 94.5]) and market share (8.5 [interquartile range 5.1 to 13.6] versus 9.4 [interquartile range 6.7 to 14.1]). Both atlases outperformed the localization index (67.5 [interquartile range 49.9 to 83.9]) and market share (20.0% [interquartile range 11.4 to 31.4]) of the counties. Within a given referral region, the demographic factors, including age, sex, race/ethnicity, insurance status, and the level of severity, affected concordance rates between residential and hospital regions.

conclusionBecause the Pittsburgh Atlas also has the benefit of respecting state and county boundaries, the use of this definition may have improved policy applicability without sacrificing accuracy in defining health care regions for acute medical conditions.

Indexed as

COVID-19PneumoniaDelivery of Health CareHospitalizationHumansPandemicsUnited States

Identifiers

PMID34952728
PMCPMC8612818

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.