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Mercy Health Center of Oklahoma City, OK, has an award-winning falls prevention program that was developed with extensive assistance from the hospital's pharmacy. The health center's fall prevention tools include guidelines for assessing fall risk.
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Pharmacists involved in a falls prevention program at Mercy Health Center in Oklahoma City, OK, have developed a falls risk assessment tool that is being used by hospitals around the country.
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If hospital pharmacy directors come away with one important point from the new health care reform bill, it should be this: Develop medication therapy management (MTM) services as soon as possible.
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About six years ago, Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, MA, had the highest rate of pressure ulcers in the state; including Stage I patients, it was in the 20%-30% range. Today, the facility can boast 10 quarters of 0%, beginning in December 2005.
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The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) developed a web-based educational resource for hospitalists, a VTE "resource room" (http://www.hospitalmedicine.org/ResourceRoomRedesign/RR_LandingPage.cfm). "The overarching goal of SHM was to bridge the gap between the best evidence in terms of medical prophylaxis and actual practice," Sylvia McKean, MD, SFHM, FACP, a senior hospitalist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, notes.
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While Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston has been successful in reducing the incidents of venous thromboembolism (VTE), it has taken an ongoing effort and a combination of successful interventions, says Sylvia McKean, MD, SFHM, FACP, a senior hospitalist. "National and international registries have shown that prophylaxis is still underutilized," she says.
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The recently passed health care reform legislation may have generated controversy in political circles, but there appears to be a consensus among health care quality observers that it will strengthen the position of hospital quality managers and give their roles even greater importance.
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Health care clinicians and organizations likely will find that the new health care reform bill's positive features outweigh its drawbacks, experts say.
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In a prospective surveillance study, 50 HIV-positive patients who presented with febrile respiratory symptoms were evaluated for the presence of respiratory viruses by multiplex RT-PCR and a microarray assay and for atypical bacterial pathogens by PCR, in addition to sputum cultures and serologic testing. Viruses accounted for 64% of the infections. Influenza virus was identified in 22 cases, and human metapneumovirus (hMPV) was next most common, with six cases.
