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For case managers working in an acute-care environment, advocacy is a fundamental principle of the services they provide. Advocacy may be described simply as wanting, getting, and doing what is in the best interest of the patient and the family. In practice, however, case managers find themselves acting as advocates not only for the patient and family but for the hospital and provider of care as well.
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A new preadmission program at the University of California (UC) Davis Health System is building a stronger link between hospital and physicians office and identifying issues much earlier in the process issues that might affect length of stay (LOS).
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Dr. Robert Gilman convened an important symposium on neurocysticercosis at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. During that symposium, Dr. Theodore Nash from NIAID reported on the increasing evidence indicating that calcific neurocysticercosis is not necessarily clinically inactive, but may be a cause of seizures and focal symptoms associated with episodic perilesional edema.
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Travelers returning from Africa are at risk for having acquired spotted fever rickettsiosis. The diagnosis can be missed if convalescent sera are obtained too early; therefore, convalescent specimens should be obtained at least 28 days after the onset of illness.
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The cytokine interleukin-6 plays an important role in triggering the rapid damage to heart muscle function that can develop in people with septic shock following infection with meningococci, a condition that often is fatal. The team making that discovery says it will be important to investigate IL-6 as a target for therapeutic agents.
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Irelands first major effort in stem cell research is getting off the ground at the National University of Ireland (Galway). The National Center for Biomedical Engineering Science at the college has secured EUR 15 million from Science Foundation Ireland and another EUR 4 million from industry partners to establish the Regenerative Medicine Institute (REMEDI), which plans to develop approaches to treating vascular disease and arthritis based on genetically modifying adult stem cells.
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MacroPore Biosurgery (San Diego, California) has received a fast-track Phase I/II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH; Bethesda, Maryland) to study the role of adipose-derived regenerative cells in treating myocardial infarction. This research will be conducted in collaboration with W. Robb MacLellan, MD, at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.
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Advanced Cell Technology (ACT; Worcester, Massachusetts) reports that nuclear transfer cloning can be used to repair and regenerate the damage done to an infarcted heart.
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Franklin Beninsig has been appointed vice president of licensing and intellectual property for LifeWave (Sacramento, California). Beninsig has served as an intellectual property expert or litigation/ discovery coordinator for several law firms, including Fish & Richardson.
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CryoCor (San Diego, California) said it has initiated its first U.S. multi-center pivotal clinical trial under a protocol approved by the FDA to treat atrial flutter with its CryoCor Cardiac Cryoablation System. CryoCors system is the first cryoablation device to be entered into a clinical pivotal trial in the U.S. for the treatment of atrial flutter, one of the leading causes of hospitalization due to rapid heart rhythm, the company said.
