Medication errors and adverse events caused by them are common during and after a hospitalization. The impact of these events on patient welfare and the financial burden, both to the patient and the healthcare system, are significant. In 2005, The Joint Commission put forth medication reconciliation …

Novel interventions that do not rely on daily adherence to ART are needed to achieve sustained viral remission for perinatally infected children, who currently rely on lifelong ART. Considering the risks and expense associated with ART interruption trials,...

Novel interventions that do not rely on daily adherence to ART are needed to achieve sustained viral remission for perinatally infected children, who currently rely on lifelong ART. Considering the risks and expense associated with ART interruption trials,...

Background and objectives Patient self-management has been shown to improve health outcomes. We developed a smartphone-based system to boost self-care by patients with CKD and integrated its use into usual CKD care. We determined its acceptability and examined changes in several clinical parameters. Design, setting, participants, & measurements We recruited patients with stage 4 or 5 CKD attending outpatient renal clinics who responded to a general information newsletter about this 6-month proof-of-principle study. The smartphone application targeted four behavioral elements: monitoring BP, medication management, symptom assessment, and tracking laboratory results. Prebuilt customizable algorithms provided real–time personalized patient feedback and alerts to providers when predefined treatment thresholds were crossed or critical changes occurred. Those who died or started RRT within the first 2 months were replaced. Only participants followed for 6 months after recruitment were included in assessing changes in clinical measures. Results In total, 47 patients (26 men; mean age =59 years old; 33% were ≥65 years old) were enrolled; 60% had never used a smartphone. User adherence was high (>80% performed ≥80% of recommended assessments) and sustained. The mean reductions in home BP readings between baseline and exit were statistically significant (systolic BP, −3.4 mmHg; 95% confidence interval, −5.0 to −1.8 and diastolic BP, −2.1 mmHg; 95% confidence interval, −2.9 to −1.2); 27% with normal clinic BP readings had newly identified masked hypertension. One hundred twenty-seven medication discrepancies were identified; 59% were medication errors that required an intervention to prevent harm. In exit interviews, patients indicated feeling more confident and in control of their condition; clinicians perceived patients to be better informed and more engaged. Conclusions Integrating a smartphone–based self–management system into usual care of patients with advanced CKD proved feasible and acceptable, and it appeared to be clinically useful. The results provide a strong rationale for a randomized, controlled trial.

The Casework Direct System protocol entails a simple and rapid lysis of the sample, requiring no tube-to-tube transfers or DNA binding steps, producing a lysate compatible with RT-PCR quantification and PowerPlex STR amplification systems.

Malignant mesothelioma (MM) is often complicated by thromboembolic episodes, with thrombomodulin (TM) playing a critical role in the anticoagulant process. Heterogeneous expression of TM has been observed in cancer, and low or no TM expression in cancer cells is associated with poor prognosis. In th …

Knowledge can mean better health for you and your family.

The Wizard® SV Genomic DNA Purification System provides a fast, membrane-based method for preparing genomic DNA from cultured cells and tissue, including mouse tails.

The pGEM®-T Vector Systems are convenient TA vector systems for quickly cloning PCR products.

Rigorously designed studies comparing different inpatient medication reconciliation practices and their effects on clinical outcomes are scarce. Available evidence supports medication reconciliation interventions that heavily use pharmacy staff and focus on patients at high risk for adverse events. …

The Molecular Biology Lab Guide is a resource designed for scientists just embarking on their career. The Guide focuses on fundamental technologies and techniques to provide an overview of the work you might encounter in a molecular biology research setting.

JM109 E. coli competent cells for blue/white screening, recombinant plasmid transformation and subcloning.

Multiple imputation is becoming increasingly established as the leading practical approach to modelling partially observed data, under the assumption that the data are missing at random. However, many medical and social datasets are multilevel, and this structure should be reflected not only in the model of interest, but also in the imputation model. In particular, the imputation model should reflect the differences between level 1 variables and level 2 variables (which are constant across level 1 units). This led us to develop the REALCOM-IMPUTE software, which we describe in this article. This software performs multilevel multiple imputation, and handles ordinal and unordered categorical data appropriately. It is freely available on-line, and may be used either as a standalone package, or in conjunction with the multilevel software MLwiN or Stata.

This DNA purification chapter addresses general information on the basics of DNA isolation, plasmid growth and DNA quantitation as well as how purification by silica can help increase your productivity so you spend less time purifying DNA and more time developing experiments and analyzing data.

Dr. Lutz Roewer is one of the renowned forensic scientists who transformed DNA forensics through studying the Y-chromosome and demonstrating the value of Y-STR analysis for forensic casework. I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Roewer while attending Promega’s 20th European Forensic DNA Working Group Meeting in Hamburg, Germany in November 2019.

ADEs in ambulatory care are common, with many being preventable and many resulting in hospitalization. Quality improvement programs should target errors in prescribing and monitoring, especially for patients using cardiovascular, analgesic, and hypoglycemic agents.

The rapid advancement of next-generation sequencing technology, also known as massively parallel sequencing (MPS), has revolutionized many areas of applied research.

We developed the Spectrum Family of CE instruments with the day-to-day challenges of the forensic analyst in mind. Whether you need higher throughput, 4-plate capacity and access to 8-dye technology, or simply want a smaller instrument compatible with existing 5- and 6-dye STR kits for your forensic samples, there’s a Spectrum CE System for you.

Background Little is known about adverse events (AEs) that occur between physician visits for ambulatory chronic disease patients. An automated telephone self-management support programme for a diverse population of diabetes patients was implemented to capture AEs, describe the self-management domains from which they emanate and explore contributing causes. Methods AEs and potential AEs (PotAEs) were identified among 111 ethnically diverse diabetes patients. An AE is an injury that results from either medical management or patient self-management; a PotAE is an unsafe state likely to lead to an event if it persists without intervention. Medical record reviews were conducted to ascertain which self-management domain was involved with the event and to explore contributing causes. Results Among the 111 patients, 86% had at least one event detected over the 9-month observation period. 111 AEs and 153 PotAEs were identified. For all events, medication management was the most common domain (166 events, 63%). Only 20% of events reflected a single contributing cause; in the remaining 80%, a combination of system, clinician and patient factors contributed to their occurrence. Patient actions were implicated in 205 (77%) events, systems issues in 183 (69%) events and inadequate physician–patient communication in 155 (59%) events. Aside from communication, primary care clinician actions contributed to the occurrence of the event in only 16 cases (6%). Conclusions Our findings reveal a complex safety ecology, with multiple contributing causes for AEs and PotAEs among ambulatory diabetes patients. Moreover, patients themselves seem to be key drivers of safety and of AEs, suggesting that patient-level self-management support and patient-centred communication are critical to AE prevention.

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Pharmacy records identified a substantial number of medications that were not in the ED chart. There is potential for greater safety and efficiency with automated access to pharmacy records.

The Thermo Scientific HyPerforma DynaDrive S.U.B.s offer a uniquely shaped unit and BPC, novel impeller design, and improved sensor technology to help optimize cell culture performance.

Browse and view a robust collection of infographics, white papers, webinars, EBooks, and more in the bioproduction resource library.

Drug record discrepancies occur frequently among patients undergoing hemodialysis. Incorporation of a pharmacist into the patient care team may increase the accuracy of the electronic drug record and avert unnecessary drug-related problems.