This article discusses current best practices in asthma care and self-management. This information will support practitioners in planning intervention strategies that maximize staff resources and time, and are patient-centered.

The BVA has launched a new guide providing information and advice for the years leading up to retirement and beyond.

Integrating people's values and perceptions into planning is essential for the successful management of natural resources. However, successful implementation of natural resources management decisions on the ground is a complex task, which requires a comprehensive understanding of a system's social and ecological linkages. This paper investigates the relationship between sense ...

BACKGROUND: Academic hospitalist groups (AHGs) are often expected to excel in multiple domains: quality improvement, patient safety, education, research, administration, and clinical care. To be successful, AHGs must develop strategies to balance their energies, resources, and performance. The balanced scorecard (BSC) is a strategic management system that enables organizations to ...

The advances in science have resulted in the emergence of nanotechnology, which deals with the design and use of tools and devices of size 1-100 nm. The application of nanotechnologies to medicine is thus termed nanomedicine. Significant research has been focused on this new and exciting field and this review ...

Introduction: A "biosimilar" or "similar biological medicinal product" is a biological agent that is similar in terms of quality, safety, and efficacy to an authorized reference biological medicine. Since the expiration of the epoetin alfa patent in Europe, three agents have received marketing authorization from the European Medicines Agency: Binocrit ...

Gua sha (press-stroking) and Baguan (cupping) are therapeutic procedures of traditional East Asian medicine (TEAM) that are also practiced in integrative clinical as well as domestic or familial settings. They may be defined as instrument assisted mechanical stimulation of the body surface that intentionally creates therapeutic petechiae and ecchymosis representing ...

BACKGROUND: /st>Distractions are a potential threat to patient safety. Previous research has focused on parts of the anaesthetic process but not on entire cases, and has focused on hazards rather than existing defences against error METHODS: /st>We observed anaesthetists at work in the operating theatre and quantified and classified the ...

John J. Kelly, MD, is Chief of Staff/Patient Safety Officer at Abington Memorial Hospital (AMH) in Abington, Pennsylvania, which was the winner of the 2011 American Hospital Quest for Quality Prize. Dr. Kelly has been in numerous leadership positions in AMH and has championed their efforts in quality and safety. ...

Objective. To investigate the adoption and impact of quality improvement measures in New Zealand hospitals. Method. Structured interviews with quality and safety managers of District Health Boards (DHBs). Correlation of use of measures with adjusted 30-day mortality data. Results. Eighteen of New Zealand's 21 DHBs participated in the survey. Structural ...

Off-label use of medicines is common. Because many off-label uses have not been carefully studied, it is important that postmarketing drug safety systems be able to identify, assess, and monitor adverse events that occur in the off-label setting. The full range of postmarketing surveillance and analysis tools can be utilized ...

Applications of ultrasound in medicine for therapeutic purposes have been accepted and beneficial uses of ultrasonic biological effects for many years. Low-power ultrasound of about 1 MHz has been widely applied since the 1950s for physical therapy in conditions such as tendinitis and bursitis. In the 1980s, high-pressure-amplitude shock waves ...

This review aims to explore the toxicological aspects of mercury-based herbo-metallic preparations like cinnabar and "Rasasindura" that are primarily composed of mercuric sulfide (HgS). Cinnabar-containing preparations have been used extensively in Indian and Chinese systems of medicine for treatment of chronic ailments like syphilis, high fever, pneumonia, insomnia, nervous disorders, ...

The rehabilitation medicine prescription is a communication tool between the referring physician and the rehabilitation team in both the inpatient and outpatient settings. This instrument is critical in both directing a course of treatment as well as minimizing risk to the patient during the treatment sessions. The goal of this ...

Staff safety is improved by clear procedures for managing abuse and assault.

Robust, active cooperation, and effective, open communication between all stakeholders is essential for ensuring regulatory compliance and healthcare product safety; avoiding the necessity for whistle-blowing; and, most essentially, meeting the transparency requirements of public trust. The focus here is on what can be done within a healthcare product organization (HPO) ...

Work-related vehicle crashes are a common cause of occupational injury. Yet, there are few studies that investigate management practices used for light vehicle fleets (i.e. vehicles less than 4.5tonnes). One of the impediments to obtaining and sharing information on effective fleet safety management is the lack of an evidence-based, standardised ...

The airline industry relies on the implementation of Safety Management System (SMS) to integrate safety policies and augment safety performance at both organizational and individual levels. Although there are various degrees of SMS implementation in practice, a comprehensive scale measuring the essential dimensions of SMS is still lacking. This paper ...

Roy pioneers the concept and practice of risk management of disastrous events via his safety-first principle for portfolio selection. More specifically, his safety-first principle advocates an optimal portfolio strategy generated from minimizing the disaster probability, while subject to the budget constraint and the mean constraint that the expected final wealth ...

Pharmacovigilance is essential for developing reliable information on the safety of herbal medicines as used in Europe and the US. The existing systems were developed for synthetic medicines and require some modification to address the specific differences of medicinal herbs. Traditional medicine from many different cultures is used in Europe ...

The purpose of this study is to explore and examine, specific to the restaurant industry, two important constructs emerging from the safety climate literature: employee perceptions of safety training and management commitment to safety. Are these two separate constructs? Are there both individual- and shared group-level safety perceptions for these ...

Many studies have found management commitment to safety to be an important construct of safety climate. This study examined the association between supervisor and employee (shared and individual) perceptions of management commitment to safety and the rate of future injuries in limited-service restaurant workers. A total of 453 participants (34 ...

The contemporary science of drug safety seeks not only to identify the risks associated with the use of medicines but also to quantify these risks, identify their risk factors, and assess strategies to minimize them. It monitors the use of medicines in actual practice to understand how the medical care ...

Background Due to the projected increase of medical graduates and general practice registrars, a rapid increase in new trainers and practices is required. The resulting mix of relatively inexperienced trainers and trainees makes the examination of the important question of patient safety even more pertinent. Objective To describe practical techniques ...

Objective: Anticipation and planning are essential steps of risk management but the mechanisms of planning behavior are incompletely understood, especially the factors including collective work. The aim of this research is to understand how anesthetists plan safe solution to perform anesthesia. Methods: A study based on interviews was conducted in ...

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has decided to get involved in scope-of-practice issues. South Carolina dental regulators have already felt the FTC's wrath. That worries organized medicine and state licensing boards. They fear the powerful agency may place a higher value on competition than on patient safety.

The new National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidance cites genitourinary (GU) medicine clinics as one setting where screening for alcohol-use disorders should be part of routine clinical practice. Northumberland GU medicine service has routinely used the Fast Alcohol Screening Tool (FAST) since June 2009. An audit of ...

Inappropriate use of oxytocin is an important patient safety issue. In this article, the authors describe success in "tackling tachysystole" using an evidence-based algorithm for oxytocin administration. Monthly audits (N = 1160) reached 100% compliance. An algorithm posted at the bedside, multidisciplinary follow-up, education, and widely disseminated results helped counter resistance and ...

Oncology Metrics, a division of Altos Solutions, has been conducting organized surveys of practicing oncologists since 2005. In this article, we present data that represent trends in community oncology practice over a 6-year period, 2005 to 2010, and make projections on the basis of these data. Over the next 3 ...

The Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) published guidelines in 2003 which aimed to standardise and improve the safety of sedation in the modern Radiology department. As sedation requirements increase, we decided to audit our own departments understandings and practice with respect to sedation. A repeat audit cycle was performed following ...

To document urodynamic practice in Wales in relation to newly released National Minimum Standards with a view to influencing organisational change. Three questionnaires, evaluating respectively, departmental practice, individual practice and the last 10 studies performed in that department, were sent to all departments performing urodynamics in Wales. Results 19/20 departments ...

Drawing on George Ritzer's sociological concept of McDonaldization, this article explores the transformation of burial practices in Kuwait. It is argued that traditional, religious, and private ways of dealing with death have been modernized using the fast-food model of McDonald's. This article examines Islamic teachings on burial and how that ...

Diarrhoea accounts for 20% of all paediatric deaths in India. Despite WHO recommendations and IAP (Indian Academy of Paediatrics) and Government of India treatment guidelines, few children suffering from acute diarrhoea in India receive low osmolarity oral rehydration solution (ORS) and zinc from health care providers. The aim of this ...

RATIONALE, AIM AND OBJECTIVE: In 2009, the UK Department of Health formalized recommended National Health Service practices for the management of tinnitus from primary care onwards. It is timely therefore to evaluate the perceived practicality, utility and impact of those guidelines in the context of current practice. We surveyed current ...

QUALITY PROBLEM: There is no simple tool to assess compliance with common national and European directives, guidance and professional advice on the management of healthcare institutions. Despite evidence of unacceptable variations in the protection of patient and staff safety little attention has been given to harmonizing the way services are ...

Motor schemas are very attractive concepts; however, their development and internal structure appear difficult to probe and identify. The present study focuses on the development of a motor schema in constant practice. In four experiments, participants practiced bimanual juggling with three standard balls. During retention tests they were asked to ...

Last year saw the publication of IS0 31000:2009, a new globally accepted standard for risk management together with a new, associated vocabulary in ISO Guide 73:2009. These were developed through a consensus-driven process over four years, through seven drafts, and involving the input of hundreds of risk management professionals around ...

International medical graduates (IMGs) comprise approximately 25% of the US physician workforce, with significant representation in primary care and care of vulnerable populations. Despite the central role of IMGs in the US healthcare system, understanding of their professional experiences is limited. To characterize the professional experiences of non-US born IMGs ...

A description of the International Criminal Police Organization and its role in disaster victim identification is provided along with a summary of the standards developed and circulated to responders in INTERPOL member countries (188 throughout the world) to insure evidence-based DVI practices. Following the INTERPOL-mediated DVI response in 2005 to ...

OBJECTIVE: The Japanese Committee for Stentgraft Management (JACSM) was established with the aim of ensuring the safe and proper reach of commercial stent grafts following their regulatory approval. This study examines the validity of the practice standards developed by JACSM. METHODS: JACSM comprises 10 associations related to endovascular treatment. Based ...

OBJECTIVE: 'Health for All by the Year of 2000' was a motto of the World Health Organization (WHO). The aim of this study was to briefly review recent efforts to standardize and improve traditional medicine including acupuncture with a focus on the WHO activities for the abovementioned motto, acupuncture and ...

The enhancement of professionalism in surgery and medicine is an important goal for all healthcare providers, both at the individual level of the physician and at the large-scale level of the healthcare system. Recently, much has been written about the challenges in implementing the concept of professionalism within healthcare delivery. ...

OBJECTIVES: To review the literature on individual community professionals' caseload management (behaviours related to assessment, treatment and discharging of clients) to identify the main themes and concepts, and to synthesize the findings to inform practice, policy and research. METHODS: Publications were systematically identified from electronic databases, hand searches of bibliographies, ...

Many serious medical errors result from violations of recognized standards of practice. Over time, even egregious violations of standards of practice may become "normalized" in healthcare delivery systems. This article describes what leads to this normalization and explains why flagrant practice deviations can persist for years, despite the importance of ...

OBJECTIVE: Considerable variation in radiologic procedures, protocols, policies, and workflows exists across the nation, sometimes even within departments. This lack of standardization fosters idiosyncratic behavior and outcomes, undermining the effort to implement best practices across institutions. The purpose of this article is to discuss the need for rapidly implementing recognized ...

This article discusses mail-order trade in medicines. It explains why this trade has developed and why there is a need for strict safety standards. The European Court of Justice obliged member states to allow such trade in non prescription medicines but did not specify any safety standards. The 2007 resolution ...

The manner in which healthcare and medical professionals serve their athlete patients is governed by a variety of relevant codes of conduct. A range of codified rules is presented that refer both the welfare of the patient and the maintaining of confidentiality, which is at the heart of trustworthy relations. ...

Professionalism is at the heart of risk management in complex, dangerous work such as medicine, aviation, and military operations. Professionalism is closely connected to expertise and is therefore closely connected to the ability to prevent and mitigate errors. But there are two paradoxes in this connection. First, professionalism can increase, ...

OBJECTIVE: To provide recommendations for the standardized use of the Antral follicle count (AFC) which is used to predict ovarian response to gonadotrophin stimulation during assisted reproductive technology treatment. However, the nature of the follicles that are visualized by ultrasound and the competence of the oocytes held within are largely ...

Of the various sources of information about medicines used by healthcare professionals, the summary of product characteristics (SPC; sometimes abbreviated as SmPC) has a low profile, despite being a definitive document. This may be because many professionals do not know what an SPC is or what it contains. Here, we ...