Budesonide/formoterol Plus Tiotropium Improves The Quality Of Life Of Patients With Severe COPD

Preliminary results from a double-blind, randomised, multicentre trial among 660 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) show that budesonide/formoterol (Symbicort: AstraZeneca) plus tiotropium (Spiriva™: Boehringer Ingelheim Limited) significantly improves disease control and patients’ quality of life.1,2

The study known as CLIMB, compared 12 weeks treatment with budesonide/formoterol (400/12 mcg one inhalation twice-daily) plus tiotropium (18 µg one inhalation once daily) vs. tiotropium alone plus placebo.

Coalition For Quality & Patient Safety Of Chicagoland PSO Taps ECRI Institute PSO For Support

ECRI Institute Patient Safety Organization (PSO) is pleased to announce an agreement with the Coalition for Quality & Patient Safety (CQPS) of Chicagoland PSO to provide patient safety data collection, reporting, and analysis. The Chicagoland PSO focuses on local experience, patterns, trends, and patient safety initiatives specific to Chicago and the surrounding counties. CQPS will coordinate its PSO and other patient safety efforts with other Illinois-based hospital and primary care associations, the Illinois Department of Public Health, consumers and consumer advocates, other patient safety and quality improvement stakeholders, and existing patient safety collaboratives across the state.

Alzheimer’s Society Comment – Care Quality Commission Survey Reveals Malnutrition In Hospitals

Around one in five hospital patients who have trouble feeding themselves do not get help with meals, according to the survey released by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

‘It’s appalling that thousands of vulnerable people who rely on the help of others to eat are being denied vital support. One quarter of all hospital beds are occupied by people with dementia, who may have difficulty swallowing; forget how to eat or stop being able to recognise food.

A Novel Method Of Isolating High Quality RNA From Kupffer Cells

Kupffer cells, resident tissue macrophages that line the liver sinusoids, play a key role in modulating inflammation in a number of experimental models of liver injury. Since Kupffer cells represent only a small portion of the entire liver cell population, greatly outnumbered by the parenchymal cells, Kupffer cell isolation faces major technical obstacles. Laser capture microdissection (LCM) offers a method of isolating a single cell type from specific regions of tissue sections.

Nurses Play Key Role In Improving Quality Of Patient Care

Quality has become a major focus within health care, especially in the areas of regulatory quality, quality assurance, quality improvement and patient safety. As this focus increases, nurses’ involvement in quality improvement activities is likely to expand in coming years. In the December 2008 issue of Urologic Nursing, Leslie W. Hall, Shirley M. Moore, and Jane H. Barnsteiner state that by actively participating in improving health care, nurses benefit their patients and experience more joy in their work.

Understanding Medication Errors One Way To Help Improve Quality Of Care

Urologic nurses must possess a basic understanding of how to analyze and report medication errors. In the December 2008 issue of Urologic Nursing, Rodney W. Hicks, Shawn Coniff Becker and Dorothy Greene Jackson discuss tools available for evaluating and reporting medication errors.

The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (NCC MERP) Taxonomy of Medication Errors, a comprehensive tool for evaluating medication errors, and several national medication error reporting programs are used to understand why and how medication errors occur, report Hicks and co-authors.

PacsSCAN Film Provides High Quality Scanning For Film-Based Mammography Priors

PACSGEAR, Inc., the leader in document and multimedia connectivity solutions for PACS/EHR, today announced the introduction of PacsSCAN Film™ for Mammography, an application specifically designed for digitizing film-based mammography images. The PacsSCAN Film for Mammography System scans plain film mammograms and allows side-by-side comparison with digital mammography images.

The product measurably improves radiologists’ reading times by employing the DICOM Digital Mammography standard. This standard enables the correct sequencing of scanned images on digital mammography workstations. Scanned images can be enhanced by using the company’s proprietary Dynamic Contrast Algorithm (DCA), which gives scanned film a digital look and feel. The PacsSCAN Film for Mammography software can be configured to display scanned images at the same resolution as their digital counterparts. Throughput is further enhanced with PACSGEAR’s patent-pending batch scanning technology.

For More Quality Time With Patients, Some Physicians Fire Insurance Companies

A type of old-fashioned medical practice is making a comeback in some corners: While most physicians contract with one or more insurance companies, some are no longer accepting health insurance at all. They want to increase their quality time with each patient, reduce hassles, and return to their passion – healing people.

In medicine’s past, the physician – little black bag in hand – had more time with each patient to listen to his or her concerns and develop a treatment plan for care together. With no insurance copays or deductibles, the patient paid for his or her care, sometimes even in chickens or other livestock.

Seminar Focuses On Quality And Safety In Nursing Education, Illinois, USA

The Joint Commission, Joint Commission Resources (JCR), Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing are jointly presenting Quality and Safety in Nursing Education: A Clinical Microsystems Approach, June 25-27, 2008, in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill. JCR is a not-for-profit affiliate of The Joint Commission.

This seminar is designed to help academic and clinical practice partners deepen their understanding of quality and safety issues; learn and apply clinical microsystems techniques; and strengthen nurses’ readiness to respond effectively to these issues. In health care delivery, a microsystem is a small group of people who work together on a regular basis to provide care to discrete subpopulations of patients. This seminar weaves together theory, research-based practices, and experiential learning to help educators and clinicians identify and improve how quality and safety issues are addressed in current curricula as well as nursing practice. Attendees will learn about high-performing organizations that have successfully applied clinical microsystems thinking to reduce risk and errors, streamline productivity, and thoroughly prepare the next generation of nurses.

Health IT Might Not Produce Immediate Savings, But It Could Improve Quality Of Care, Reduce Health Disparities, According To Analysts

Health IT Now! Coalition on Friday at a Capitol Hill briefing asked lawmakers to pass legislation that would subsidize health care providers for the adoption of electronic health records, ensure interoperability among health care information technology platforms and address privacy concerns, CongressDaily reports (CongressDaily, 6/13).

At the briefing, RAND researcher Richard Hillestad cited a study he led that found implementation of an interoperable health care IT system by 90% of the U.S. health care system would save $80 billion annually after 15 years. He added that preventive care and chronic disease management efforts that use health care IT could prevent 400,000 deaths and add 40 million workdays annually (Wyckoff, CQ HealthBeat, 6/13). Hillestad also said that use of health care IT could prevent more than 2.2 million adverse events related to medications annually (CongressDaily, 6/13).