Association between hospital size and pharmacy department productivity.

Purpose: The purposes of this study were to characterize and quantify workload and productivity in hospitals according to their size, to establish comparative statistics useful for pharmacy administrators as a means to contrast their efficiency to that of other hospitals of similar sizes, and to provide data to enable policymakers to better assess staffing and resource needs.

Methods: A 50-item Web-based survey designed to illicit information about pharmacy department staffing, workload, and productivity was sent electronically to 242 members of Consorta, Inc., a group-purchasing organization.

Monitoring of pharmacy staffing, workload, and productivity in community hospitals.

Purpose: The purpose of this survey was to identify and characterize pharmacy productivity monitoring systems used in community hospitals that were part of a national group purchasing organization (GPO).

Methods: A 50-item questionnaire was developed, pretested, and sent electronically to the directors of pharmacy at 242 member hospitals of Consorta, Inc., a national GPO.

Louis Gdalman, pioneer in hospital pharmacy poison information services.

The role played by hospital pharmacist Louis Gdalman in the development of poisoning information services in the Chicago area is described. In the 1930s, decades before the creation of the Chicago Poisoning Control Program, Louis Gdalman had already established a poison information service at St. Luke's Hospital in Chicago.

Prospective study of replacing administration sets for intravenous therapy at 48- vs 72-hour intervals. 72 hours is safe and cost-effective.

We prospectively studied the safety of replacing intravenous delivery systems, including those used in total parenteral nutrition, at 72- compared with 48-hour intervals in 487 patients. Although the prevalence of contamination of intravenous fluid was higher in administration sets replaced at 72-hour intervals (10/664, 1.5%) than in sets replaced every 48 hours (6/710, 0.

[Paroxysmal tachycardic atrial fibrillation: termination by surgically induced A-V block (author's transl)].

In a 58-year-old patient frequent attacks of tachycardic atrial fibrillation had given rise to signs of abnormal cardiac function. All drug treatment had failed, as had several attempts at electric countershock and rapid atrial and ventricular stimulation. For this reason a surgical A-V block at the level of the His bundle was induced under cardio-pulmonary bypass and a ventricular pacemaker inserted.

[Clinical and haemodynamic results with intra-aortic counterpulsation (author's transl)].

The AVCO balloon pump (model 7) was used on 13 patients with cardiogenic shock and for circulatory support after open-heart surgery. Twelve patients survived, but one patient died of a cerebral embolism which had occurred before the use of the balloon pump. Mean systemic arterial pressure, mean pulmonary artery pressure, pulmonary wedge pressure and heart rate were measured in all patients, while cardiac index and arterio-venous oxygen difference were measured in seven.