Effect of Lean Processes on Surgical Wait Times and Efficiency in a Tertiary Care Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Importance: There are an increasing number of veterans in the United States, and the current delay and wait times prevent Veterans Affairs institutions from fully meeting the needs of current and former service members. Concrete strategies to improve throughput at these facilities have been sparse.

Objective: To identify whether lean processes can be used to improve wait times for surgical procedures in Veterans Affairs hospitals.

Toward understanding the mechanism underlying the strong adjuvant activity of aluminum salt nanoparticles.

Aluminum salts such as aluminum oxyhydroxide and aluminum hydroxyphosphate are commonly used human vaccine adjuvants. In an effort to improve the adjuvant activity of aluminum salts, we previously showed that the adjuvant activity of aluminum oxyhydroxide nanoparticles is significantly more potent than that of aluminum oxyhydroxide microparticles. The present study was designed to (i) understand the mechanism underlying the potent adjuvant activity of aluminum oxyhydroxide nanoparticles, relative to microparticles, and (ii) to test whether aluminum hydroxyphosphate nanoparticles have a more potent adjuvant activity than aluminum hydroxyphosphate microparticles as well.