Missing the point: Quality-driven healthcare institutions may mistakenly disregard their role in nursing and medical education.

Aligned with international standards, the UAE Government and many other developing countries in the region (GCC and MENA) have started to implement strict quality improvement initiatives to develop their healthcare systems. Most of these initiatives are geared toward meeting patient satisfaction and avoiding circumstances or events that would dissatisfy patients. It is also used to measure healthcare institution performance, assess efficiency and determine their funding and reimbursement.

Synthesizing core nursing skills to support behavioural-based interviews for nurses in the UAE: A nominal group study.

Aim: To develop a bank of core clinical and performance skills to inform the future development of structured interview questions to aid the recruitment of nurses in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Background: The UAE depends on expatriate nurses with variable clinical and educational backgrounds. Given the global shortage of nurses, the UAE requires innovative recruitment methods to attract and retain quality nurses and ensure high-quality health care services.

Incidence and Resistotyping Profiles of Bacillus subtilis Isolated from Azadi Teaching Hospital in Duhok City, Iraq.

Background: Bacillus subtilis are opportunistic, spore forming bacteria, common soil inhabitants. A resistant spore allows bacteria to endure extreme conditions of heat and desiccation in the environments promotes their survival in many instances, even in environments like hospitals.

Objectives: This paper purposes to find out the incidence of Bacillus subtilis from various sources at Azadi Teaching Hospital in Duhok city, Iraq.

Recent advances in pharmacokinetic modeling.

A major part of the science of pharmacokinetics is the modeling of the underlying processes that contribute to drug disposition. The purpose of pharmacokinetic models is to summarize the knowledge gained in preclinical and clinical studies at various stages in drug development and to rationally guide future studies with the use of adequately predictive models. This review highlights a variety of recent advances in mechanistic pharmacokinetic modeling.

The use of Monte Carlo simulations to study the effect of poor compliance on the steady state concentrations of valproic acid following administration of enteric-coated and extended release divalproex sodium formulations.

Divalproex sodium extended-release (Depakote ER) is a once daily (QD) formulation for valproic acid that was developed to improve patient compliance and to reduce side effects compared with the standard twice-daily (BID) delayed release (DR) formulation (Depakote tablets). However, there are concerns of potential sub-therapeutic concentrations following delayed or missed doses or toxic concentrations with replacement doses for the ER and DR formulations. Simulations can be used to investigate the effect of poor compliance on drug concentrations, which may not be possible to do in a study population for ethical or practical reasons.