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Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	50%

Selected Abstracts

Cracking the Code: A Decode Strategy for the International Business Machines Punch Cards of Korean War Soldiers

JOURNAL OF FORENSIC SCIENCES, Issue 3 2006
Erin M. Mitsunaga B.A.
ABSTRACT: During the Korean War, International Business Machines (IBM) punch cards were created for every individual involved in military combat. Each card contained all pertinent personal information about the individual and was utilized to keep track of all soldiers involved. However, at present, all of the information known about these punch cards reveals only their format and their significance; there is little to no information on how these cards were created or how to interpret the information contained without the aid of the computer system used during the war. Today, it is believed there is no one available to explain this computerized system, nor do the original computers exist. This decode strategy is the result of an attempt to decipher the information on these cards through the use of all available medical and dental records for each individual examined. By cross-referencing the relevant personal information with the known format of the cards, a basic guess-and-check method was utilized. After examining hundreds of IBM punch cards, however, it has become clear that the punch card method of recording information was not infallible. In some cases, there are gaps of information on cards where there are data recorded on personal records; in others, information is punched incorrectly onto the cards, perhaps as the result of a transcription error. Taken all together, it is clear that the information contained on each individual's card should be taken solely as another form of personal documentation. [source]

Patterns in nursing home medication errors: disproportionality analysis as a novel method to identify quality improvement opportunities

PHARMACOEPIDEMIOLOGY AND DRUG SAFETY, Issue 10 2010
Richard A. Hansen
Abstract Purpose To explore the use of disproportionality analysis of medication error data as a novel method to identify relationships that might not be obvious through traditional analyses. This approach can supplement descriptive data and target quality improvement efforts. Methods Data came from the Medication Error Quality Initiative (MEQI) individual event reporting system. Participants were North Carolina nursing homes who submitted incident reports to the Web-based MEQI data repository during the 2006 and 2007 reporting years. Data from 206 nursing homes were summarized descriptively and then disproportionality analysis was applied. Associations between medication type and possible causes at the state level were explored. A single nursing home was selected to illustrate how the method might inform quality improvement at the facility level. Disproportionality analysis of drug errors in this home was compared with benchmarking. Results Statewide, 59 drug-cause pairs met the disproportionality signal and 11 occurred in 10 or more reports. Among these, warfarin was co-reported with communication errors; esomeprazole, risperidone, and nitrofurantoin were disproportionately associated with transcription error; and oxycodone and morphine were disproportionately reported with name confusion. Facility-level analyses illustrate how descriptive frequencies and disproportionality analysis are complementary, but also identify different safety targets. Conclusions Exploratory analysis tools can help identify medication error types that occur at disproportionate rates. Candidate associations might be used to target patient safety work, although further evaluation is needed to determine the value of this information. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Modeling of activation data in the BrainMapÔ database: Detection of outliers

HUMAN BRAIN MAPPING, Issue 3 2002
Finn Årup Nielsen
Abstract We describe a system for meta-analytical modeling of activation foci from functional neuroimaging studies. Our main vehicle is a set of density models in Talairach space capturing the distribution of activation foci in sets of experiments labeled by lobar anatomy. One important use of such density models is identification of novelty, i.e., low probability database events. We rank the novelty of the outliers and investigate the cause for 21 of the most novel, finding several outliers that are entry and transcription errors or infrequent or non-conforming terminology. We briefly discuss the use of atlases for outlier detection. Hum. Brain Mapping 15:146,156, 2002. © 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

An evaluation of pharmacist-written hospital discharge prescriptions on general surgical wards

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHARMACY PRACTICE, Issue 3 2005
Mohamed H. Rahman Principal pharmacist, surgical services
Objective To evaluate the quality of pharmacist-written hospital discharge prescriptions (DPs) in comparison to those written by doctors. Method The study was carried out in two, week-long phases on the general surgical wards in one UK hospital. In phase 1, doctors wrote the DPs, which were then checked by the ward pharmacist. In phase 2, ward pharmacists wrote the DPs which were then checked by the patient's junior doctor. In both phases, the clinical dispensary pharmacist made their routine check of the prescription prior to dispensing. All interventions were recorded on a pre-piloted data collection form. Key findings In phase 1, doctors wrote 128 DPs; in phase 2, pharmacists wrote 133 DPs. There were 755 interventions recorded during phase 1 in comparison to 76 during phase 2. In phase 1, transcription errors accounted for 118 interventions, 149 were due to ambiguity/illegibility; 488 amendments were to facilitate the dispensing process e.g. clarification of patient, medical and drug details, and dosage form discrepancies. In phase 2, transcription errors accounted for one intervention, 50 interventions were due to ambiguities or illegibility; 25 amendments were to facilitate the dispensing process. During phase 2, doctors made 10 minor alterations to pharmacist-written DPs. On 52 occasions during phase 2, the ward pharmacist had to clarify, prior to writing the DP, either the dose of a drug, or, whether a drug should be continued on discharge, and if so, for what duration. Conclusion Pharmacist-written DPs contained considerably fewer errors, omissions and unclear information in comparison to doctor-written DPs. Doctors recorded no significant alterations when validating pharmacist-written DPs. [source]