Science Centre (science + centre)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Adult Learning Experiences from an Aquarium Visit: The role of Social Interactions in Family Groups

CURATOR THE MUSEUM JOURNAL, Issue 3 2007
Adriana Briseño-Garzón
Based on a larger empirical work,1 this paper reports on the nature and character of adult learning within a family group context while visiting the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre (Canada), and the longitudinal effects of such experience in the weeks following the visit. In this study a multiple or collective instrumental case study approach was employed to examine the learning experiences of the adult members of 13 family groups; this approach demonstrates that adults visiting the aquarium as part of a family group are active social learners and not merely facilitators of the experience for younger visitors or caregivers. Our outcomes also indicate that the adult members of the participant family groups learned in a multiplicity of domains including the cognitive, the social, and the affective, as a result of their visit to the Vancouver Aquarium. In addition, we discuss the longitudinal impacts of the aquarium visit and provide valuable insights as to the relevance of these experiences in visitors' everyday lives. [source]


Methodology for evaluating physician order entry (POE) implementations

JOURNAL OF EVALUATION IN CLINICAL PRACTICE, Issue 4 2003
Glen Geiger MD CM MASc BASc FRCPC
Abstract The body of physician order entry (POE) implementations literature uses statistical evaluation methods to demonstrate changes in specified variables after POE implementation. To understand and manage the holistic impact of POE on the health care institution, a methodology that utilizes feedback to guide the POE implementation towards the satisfaction of stakeholder objectives is presented. Stakeholders jointly define quantitative and qualitative metrics for their objectives, establish target value vectors for the metrics that represent acceptable implementation outcomes and specify evaluation milestones. These are used to compare pre- and post-POE implementation clinical performance, enabling a socio-technical feedback,improvement cycle. A case study is provided to illustrate how the methodology is being used at Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Science Centre in Toronto, Canada. [source]


Infant bath seats, drowning and near-drowning

JOURNAL OF PAEDIATRICS AND CHILD HEALTH, Issue 5-6 2004
RW Byard
Objective: To investigate the possible role of infant bathtub seats in drowning and near-drowning episodes in infants. Methods: A review was conducted of the files of the Forensic Science Centre and Child Protection Unit, Women's and Children's Hospital, Adelaide, South Australia, for significant immersion incidents in infants involving bathtub seats from January 1998 to December 2003. Results: A total of six cases of drowning occurred over the 6-year period of the study in children under 2 years of age, including two infants. One of these cases, a 7-month-old boy, had been left unattended for some time in an adult bath in a bathtub seat. He was found drowned, having submerged after slipping down and becoming trapped in the seat. Three near-drowning episodes occurred in children under the age of 2 years, including two boys aged 7 and 8 months, both of whom had been left for some time in adult baths in bath seats. Both were successfully resuscitated and treated in hospital. Conclusions: These cases demonstrate the vulnerability of infants to immersion incidents when left unattended in bathtubs. Bathtubs are particularly dangerous for infants as the slippery and smooth surfaces predispose to loss of balance and make escape from water difficult. Infant bathtub seats may give parents and child carers a false sense of security leading to infants being left unattended. Unfortunately, however, infants may fall out of, or slip and become trapped in, such seats. Infants and young children cannot be left unsupervized in water, and devices used as bathing aids such as bathtub seats may contribute to immersion incidents. [source]


Accuracy of technetium-99m SPECT-CT hybrid images in predicting the precise intraoperative anatomical location of parathyroid adenomas

HEAD & NECK: JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENCES & SPECIALTIES OF THE HEAD AND NECK, Issue 4 2008
Luke Harris MD
Abstract Background. This study evaluated the accuracy of single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)-CT imaging for the preoperative localization of parathyroid adenomas. Methods. This study included both a quantitative and qualitative accuracy measure. The quantitative measure was the distance between the location of the adenoma on the SPECT-CT scan and the location of the adenoma intraoperatively. Qualitatively, surgeons were asked whether or not the adenoma was in the exact location predicted by the SPECT-CT scan. The time from initial incision to identification of the parathyroid was recorded. Patients referred to London Health Sciences Centre for a suspected parathyroid adenoma were eligible for this study. Results. Twenty-three patients participated in this study. Eighteen (78.3%) had a single adenoma, 2 (8.7%) had double adenomas, and 3 (13.0%) had multiglandular hyperplasia. SPECT-CT correctly detected and localized 16 of 18 (88.9%) cases of single parathyroid adenomas. The mean distance between the location of the adenoma on the SPECT-CT scan and the location of the adenoma intraoperatively was 16.3 mm (95% , 19.0 mm). For single adenomas, the median time from skin incision to identification was 14 minutes (range, 8,40 minutes). The preoperative detection and localization of a single focus of sestamibi uptake yielded a parathyroid adenoma in the specified location in 80.0% of cases (95% CI, 97.4,66.5%). Conclusions. SPECT-CT predicted the intraoperative location of a single parathyroid adenoma within 19.0 mm with 95% confidence. The correct detection and localization of multiglandular disease remains difficult. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Head Neck, 2008 [source]


Near misses: Paradoxical realities in everyday clinical practice

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NURSING PRACTICE, Issue 6 2008
Lianne Jeffs RN PhD (c)
This qualitative study was conducted to define and describe what constitutes and contributes to near miss occurrences in the health-care system and what is needed to ensure safer processes of care. Nine health-care organizations (13 sites total) including six academic health sciences centres (acute care, mental health and geriatric) and three community hospitals participated in this study. The final sample consisted of 37 focus groups (86 in the nursing staff only; 62 in the pharmacy staff only; and 99 in the mixed nursing and pharmacy focus groups respectively) and 120 interviews involving 144 health-care consumers. Data were collected using focus groups (health-care professionals) and key informant interviews (health-care consumers). A multi-level content analyses schema (transcription, coding, categorizing, internal consistency, thematic analysis and community validation) was used. Six themes emerged from the multi-level content analyses that combined focus group (health-care professionals) and key informant interview (health-care consumers) data. These themes are discussed under the three original research questions with supporting data derived from codes and categories. Study findings implicate changes for the health-care landscape relative to system, health policy, professional development and quality improvement. [source]