Background: The medical community has only recently begun to address how human error affects patient safety. In order to confront human error in medicine, there is a need to teach students who are entering the health professions how potential errors may manifest and train them to prevent or mitigate these ...

INTRODUCTION: Simulation sessions prepare medical professionals for pediatric emergencies. No validated tools exist to evaluate overall team performance. Our objective was to develop and evaluate the inter-rater reliability and validity of a team performance assessment tool during simulated pediatric resuscitations. METHODS: We developed the Simulation Team Assessment Tool (STAT) which ...

The Association for Perioperative Practice has taken a leading role in raising awareness of the importance of human factors in healthcare. We at Atrainability (2011) have been privileged to run training courses on human factors to association members at the last two annual conferences and also at venues throughout the ...

INTRODUCTION: : There is an increasing interest in human factors within the healthcare environment reflecting the understanding of their impact on safety. The aim of this paper is explore how human factors might be taught on resuscitation courses, and improve course outcomes in terms of improved mortality and morbidity for ...

An index observation where a dog was trained to alert to, as well as respond to, human tonic-clonic seizures led to further research and refinement of training techniques. This was followed by anecdotal reports of pet dogs spontaneously anticipating human epileptic seizures. An industry has since developed training Seizure-Alert Dogs ...

Recognition of the many limitations of traditional apprenticeship training is driving new approaches to learning medical procedural skills. Among simulation technologies and methods available today, computer-based systems are topical and bring the benefits of automated, repeatable, and reliable performance assessments. Human factors research is central to simulator model development that ...

Anatomical education has traditionally used cadaveric material to study the human body, with both wet prosections and plastinated (PP) material commonly utilized. However, the frequency of use of these different preparation modes in a tertiary institution has not been previously examined. An audit of PP use in the Department of ...

This study presents the design, effect and utility of using audiovisual material containing real images of dissected human cadavers as an innovative educational strategy (IES) in the teaching of Human Anatomy. The goal is to familiarize students with the practice of dissection and to transmit the importance and necessity of ...

This study examined the effect of different anatomic representations on student learning in a human anatomy class studying the muscular system. Specifically, we examined the efficacy of using dissected cats (with and without handouts) compared with clay sculpting of human structures. Ten undergraduate laboratory sections were assigned to three treatment ...

The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of training experience on young horses (Equus caballus)' lateralized responses to an approaching human. The results show that the one year old untrained horses display asymmetrical responses to an approaching human, with more negative reactions (escapes, threats) when approached from ...

Conservation policies are increasing in response to human-induced ecosystem degradation, but little is known about their interplay with natural disasters. Through an analysis of satellite imagery and field data we evaluated the impacts of a devastating earthquake on forest recovery and avoided forest loss estimated to have been obtained by ...

CONTEXT: Hospice is underused by older, rural, and minority populations. OBJECTIVE: Because local availability of hospice is an important predictor of use, we aimed to identify geographic variation in hospice supply and examine its community-level determinants, including wealth. METHODS: This was an observational geographic study using the 2008 National Hospice ...

Moral dilemmas, funding scarcities, human resources shortages, knowledge gaps - surviving and thriving in today's healthcare environment is anything but simple or dull. In this issue of Healthcare Quarterly you will read about colleagues across Canada drawing on deep reservoirs of ingenuity and expertise to plan and implement solutions that, ...

In July 2010, WHO published new recommendations on providing antiretroviral therapy to adults and adolescents, including starting ART earlier, usually at a CD4 count of 350 or lower, specific regimens for first- and second-line therapies, and other recommendations. This paper estimates the potential impact and cost of the revised guidelines ...

Developmental programming is an important physiological process that allows different phenotypes to originate from a single genotype. Through plasticity in early life, the developing organism can adopt a phenotype (within the limits of its genetic background) that is best suited to its expected environment. In humans, together with the relative ...

Medicare Part D provided 3.4 million American seniors with prescription drug insurance. It may also have had an unintended effect on pharmacy viability. This study compares trends in the number of pharmacies and rate of pharmacy closures before and after the implementation of Medicare Part D. This retrospective observational study ...

OBJECTIVES: We conducted a midpoint review of The California Endowment's Healthy Eating, Active Communities (HEAC) program, which works in 6 low-income California communities to prevent childhood obesity by changing children's environments. The HEAC program conducts interventions in 5 key childhood environments: schools, after-school programs, neighborhoods, health care, and marketing and ...

Much of the research evidence relating to the physical learning environment of schools is inconclusive, contradictory or incomplete. Nevertheless, within this confusing area, research from a number of disciplines, using a range of methodologies, points to the negative impact of noise on students' learning. In this paper, drawing on our ...

Several studies have been conducted about Clubhouse operations and the users of Clubhouses (i.e., members); however none have sought to weigh the importance of both staff and member perceptions of the Clubhouse environment. A measure assessing the program climate as well as service components was administered to both members and ...

Abstract Current business leaders continue to adopt e-learning technology despite concerns regarding its value. Positing that the effectiveness of e-training depends on how its environment is managed, we argue that a learner-centric approach is necessary in order to achieve workplace training goals. We subsequently develop a theoretical model that is ...

This paper is a report of the psychometric testing of the Clinical Learning Environment Inventory. The clinical learning environment is a complex socio-cultural entity that offers a variety of opportunities to engage or disengage in learning. The Clinical Learning Environment Inventory is a self-report instrument consisting of 42 items classified ...

Environmental education has evolved over the years to respond to the varied complexities found in the different localities where it is practiced. In many parts of the world where biodiversity is rich, social conditions are poor, so educators have included sustainable development alternatives to better the environment and the livelihoods ...

The shortage of doctors in New Zealand, especially in regional and rural areas, together with the recognition that medical students need to learn in a variety of contexts has led to new learning environments being developed. This paper describes some of the key factors that have led to the successful ...

Creating a safe place for open classroom engagement on topics of multiculturalism and diversity requires intentionality and honesty. Unless all, professor and students alike, feel safe talking about related issues, the attempt will result in a politically correct exercise in futility. This article focuses on how intentional pedagogical efforts can ...

The use of Virtual Environments has been widely reported as a method of teaching anatomy. Generally such environments only convey the shape of the anatomy to the student. We present the Bangor Augmented Reality Education Tool for Anatomy (BARETA), a system that combines Augmented Reality (AR) technology with models produced ...

The Pearl Theater was designed and built to meet the demands of both the sophisticated local market and the demanding high-end tourist market in Las Vegas, NV. These markets will quickly dismiss any venue that does not deliver a superior performance, as will the performers that a venue like this ...

BACKGROUND: School-based health centers (SBHCs) have improved access to primary and preventive health care for underserved children and youth by bringing comprehensive health services into the schools while addressing critical health problems that make it difficult for students to learn. Despite the findings on the positive effects of SBHCs on ...

Small-scale enterprises face difficulties in fulfilling the regulations for organising Systematic Work Environment Management. This study compared three groups of small-scale manufacturing enterprises with and without support for implementing the provision. Two implementation methods, supervised and network method, were used. The third group worked according to their own ideas. Twenty-three ...

The learning environment of a medical school has a significant impact on students' achievements and learning outcomes. The importance of equitable learning environments across programme sites is implicit in distributed undergraduate medical programmes being developed and implemented. To study the learning environment and its equity across two classes and three ...

Approximately half of American adults do not meet recommended physical activity guidelines. Face-to-face lifestyle interventions improve health outcomes but are unlikely to yield population-level improvements because they can be difficult to disseminate, expensive to maintain, and inconvenient for the recipient. In contrast, Internet-based behavior change interventions can be disseminated widely ...

In this article, Patricia A. Patterson, a contributor to the recently-released standard ANSI/AAMI HE75:2009 Human factors engineering-Design of medical devices, highlights information from the standard important to developing labeling and training for homecare devices. She also describes one approach to developing labeling and training materials.

BACKGROUND: Medical student education in Western Australia is expanding to secondary level metropolitan hospitals and rural sites to accommodate workforce demands and increasing medical student numbers. AIMS: To determine if students' perceptions of the teaching environment for obstetrics and gynaecology differ between tertiary, secondary level metropolitan hospitals and rural sites, ...

New types of social Internet applications (often referred to as Web 2.0) are becoming increasingly popular within higher education environments. Although developed primarily for entertainment and social communication within the general population, applications such as blogs, social video sites, and virtual worlds are being adopted by higher education institutions. These ...

During the decommissioning and maintenance of some of the facilities at the U.S. Department of Energy Hanford Site in Washington State, workers have potential for a Sr intake. However, because of worldwide radioactive fallout, Sr is present in our environment and can be detectable in routine urine bioassay samples. It ...

The learning climate is an important aspect of educational environments that impacts on learner satisfaction, stress and attitudes to learning. Quality management of educational environments has traditionally focused on teacher development and aspects of the environment that are easily quantifiable. This study describes the learning climate of GP training practices ...

Using trait activation theory as a framework, the authors examined the moderating role of two situational variables-perceptions of organizational politics and perceptions of leader effectiveness-on the relationship between core self-evaluations and job performance. Results from two samples (N = 137 and N = 226) indicate that employee perceptions of their ...

OBJECTIVE: Develop rural-specific assessment tools to be used by researchers and practitioners to measure the activity-friendliness of rural communities. METHOD: The tools were created through a mixed-methods investigation into the determinants of physical activity among rural populations. This informed the development of a conceptual framework defining activity-friendly rural environments. Questions ...

To determine the effect of peridomestic environments on Aedes aegypti infestation in urban premises, we conducted two consecutive surveys in the hot-dry and cool-wet seasons. Most Ae. aegypti pupae (79%) were recovered from premises where preadult forms (larvae and/or pupae) had been detected in both surveys. Hence, repeated infestation appears ...

Bayesian foraging in patchy environments requires that foragers have information about the distribution of resources among patches (prior information), either set by natural selection or learned from past experience. We test the hypothesis that bumblebee foragers can rapidly learn prior information from past experience in two very different experimental environments. ...

In this study, we developed a predictive program for Vibrio parahaemolyticus growth under various environmental conditions. Raw growth data was obtained with a V. parahaemolyticus O3:K6 strain cultured at a variety of broth temperatures, pH, and salt concentrations. Data were analyzed with our logistic model and the parameter values of ...

AIMS: To assess the learning environment of New Zealand paediatric trainees, examine the factors influencing the trainee's perceptions of their learning environment and to assess the suitability of using the Postgraduate Hospital Education Environment Measure (PHEEM) in New Zealand. METHODS: Paediatric trainees completed the PHEEM questionnaire and returned this anonymously ...

Collaborative learning through case-based or problem-based learning (PBL) scenarios is an excellent way for students to acquire knowledge and develop decision-making skills. However, the process is threatened by the movement towards more self-directed learning and the migration of students from campus-based to workplace-based learning. Paper-based PBL cases can only proceed ...

INTRODUCTION: The educational environment is widely considered to be a major factor affecting students' motivation and learning outcomes. Although students' perceptions of their educational environment are often reported, we are unaware of any published reports that relate this information to students' clinical competence, either self-perceived or objectively measured. OBJECTIVES: We ...

Presence in virtual learning environments (VLEs) has been associated with a number of outcome factors related to a user's ability and motivation to learn. The extant but relatively small body of research suggests that a high level of presence is related to better performance on learning outcomes in VLEs. Different ...

SUMMARY: Amino acid residues are under various kinds of local environmental restraints, which influence substitution patterns. Ulla,(1) a program for calculating environment-specific substitution tables, reads protein sequence alignments and local environment annotations. The program produces a substitution table for every possible combination of environment features. Sparse data is handled using ...

BACKGROUND: Does the university experience and environment on two very different campuses create perceptions of advantage or disadvantage despite delivery of the same curriculum by the same tutors? Perhaps more importantly, do different types of universities result in varying achievements in learning given similar students? AIMS: The Hull York Medical ...

Phenotypic plasticity is adaptive in variable environments but, given its costs, may be disfavored if only one environment is commonly encountered. Yet species in relatively constant environments often adjust phenotypes successfully in rare or novel environments. Developmental biases may reduce the costs of plasticity in common environments, favoring the maintenance ...

Perception of floor-projected moving geometric shapes was examined in the context of the Situated Multimedia Arts Learning Laboratory (SMALLab), an immersive, mixed-reality learning environment. As predicted, the projected destinations of shapes which retreated in depth (proximal origin) were judged significantly less accurately than those that approached (distal origin). Participants maintained ...

This article describes the Environmental Assessment Instrument (EAI), a tool designed to help public health professionals analyze and then engage the environment in which programs operate. The prevailing environment is an important force that must be considered in an integrated systems approach when implementing programs and policies. The Division of ...

Most surgical trainee make steady progress, delivering a safe and reliable service at an appropriate level at the same time as they as learn new skills under supervision. Trainees learn at different rates, and progress that is safe and steady although slower than the norm should not be classed as ...