1,720,954 research outputs found
Medication safety in hospitals : medication errors and interventions to improve the medication use process
No full textMedication errors are an unnecessary threat to patient safety. The aim of this study was to assess the epidemiology of medication errors and to assess the effectiveness of interventions intended to avoid medication errors in a tertiary-care hospital in Hong Kong.
The epidemiology of medication errors included the study of the pattern of interception of medication errors and the study of technology-related medication errors using medication incidents reported during years 2006–2010. 34.1% of all medication errors that were reported in the study hospital were not intercepted and 92.4% of all drug administration errors reached the patient. 17.1% of all reported medication errors were technology-related and, most were due to human interaction with technology.
The effects of a bar-code assisted medication administration (BCMA) system when used without the support of computerised prescribing (stand-alone), on its users and the dispensing process was studied using direct observations, questionnaires (Likert scale) and interviews. It was found that this system increased the number of dispensing steps from 5 to 8 and dispensing time by 1.9 times. Potential dispensing errors also increased (P<0.001). The perceived usefulness of the technology decreased among pharmacy staff (P=0.008) after implementation and they (N=16) felt that the system offered less benefit to the dispensing process (8/16) without the support of computerised prescribing. Nurses (N=10) felt that the stand-alone BCMA system was useful in improving the accuracy of drug administration (8/10).
Avoiding the use of inappropriate abbreviations in prescriptions will help to reduce medication errors. Therefore the effectiveness of a ‘Do Not Use’ list (a list of error-prone abbreviations used in the study hospital) and attitudes of health care professionals on using abbreviations in prescriptions was studied using prescription review and questionnaires respectively. The use of abbreviations included in the ‘Do Not Use’ list decreased significantly (P<0.001) after its introduction but other unapproved abbreviations to denote drug names and instructions were commonly used. 96% of doctors, and all pharmacists and nurses, believed that avoiding inappropriate abbreviations will help to reduce medication errors.
The use of abbreviations in prescriptions and attitudes of pharmacists in the study hospital was compared with a different medical system to determine the appropriateness of developing a universal error-prone abbreviation list. It was found that the types and frequencies of using inappropriate abbreviations vary among different medical systems.
In conclusion, additional interventions such as technological interventions are needed to minimise drug administration errors, but proper planning and careful monitoring are needed to avoid unintended errors when using technologies. Implementing a stand-alone BCMA system aimed at reducing drug administration errors may affect the dispensing process. Therefore effects of a technology on all related processes need to be considered before implementation, and monitored after implementation. The introduction of a ‘Do Not Use’ list is effective in reducing inappropriate abbreviations in prescriptions and most health care professionals agree that avoiding inappropriate abbreviations may help to reduce medication errors. However, formulating in-house error-prone and standard abbreviation lists in hospitals, continuous updating of the lists and frequent reminders to prescribers are recommended.published_or_final_versionMedicineDoctoralDoctor of Philosoph
Compliance of Manufacturer Medicine Labels to the National Regulation in a State Hospital in Sri Lanka
No full textBackground:
Nonstandard pharmaceutical or manufacturer labels may lead to medication errors. Therefore, label content and design are specified and monitored through regulatory frameworks. The aim of this study was to assess the availability of vital information in manufacturer labels of medicines used in a selected state hospital and adherence to the guidelines on labelling of medicines (GLM V1.0) of the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA), Sri Lanka.
Methods:
Three hundred randomly selected medicine manufacturer labels were assessed using a checklist developed based on GLM V1.0.
Results:
Of the 300 labels, 89.6% complied with the recommended format of the generic name followed by its pharmaceutical form and strength, and 84.0% specified their pharmacopeial monograph. Almost 40% were substandard, lacking at least one essential piece of information required by regulation. The strength of the medicine was not indicated in the principal display panel (PDP) of 5.3% of medicines. 5.0% of labels for various strengths of the same medicine or different medicines looked alike. Other observed flaws were missing necessary information and look-alike labels, reflecting a lack of quality control.
Conclusion:
Divergence from specified standards demonstrates the need for a multifaceted approach by the NMRA to prevent ambiguous labels. Key calls to action for policymakers include better manufacturer guidance, stronger pre-submission assessments, rejecting non-standard labels, and introducing barcode readers.Full Tex
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
- …
