Improving Transplant Medication Safety Through a Technology and Pharmacist Intervention (ISTEP): Protocol for a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Medication errors, adverse drug events, and nonadherence lead to increased health care utilization and increased risk of adverse clinical outcomes, including graft loss, in solid organ transplant recipients. Veterans living with organ transplants represent a population that is at substantial risk for medication safety events and fragmented care coordination issues. To improve medication safety and long-term clinical outcomes in veteran transplant patients, interventions should address interorganizational system failures and provider-level and patient-level factors.

Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections in Adults: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prevention.

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are among the most common healthcare-associated infections, and 70%-80% are catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs). About 25% of hospitalized patients have an indwelling urinary catheter placed during their hospital stay, and therefore, are at risk for CAUTIs, which have been associated with worse patient outcomes. Additionally, hospitals face a significant financial impact since the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services incentive program penalizes hospitals with higher than expected CAUTIs.

Association of Very Early Serum Levels of S100B, Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein, Ubiquitin C-Terminal Hydrolase-L1, and Spectrin Breakdown Product with Outcome in ProTECT III.

Rapid risk-stratification of patients with acute traumatic brain injury (TBI) would inform management decisions and prognostication. The objective of this serum biomarker study (Biomarkers of Injury and Outcome [BIO]-Progesterone for Traumatic Brain Injury, Experimental Clinical Treatment [ProTECT]) was to test the hypothesis that serum biomarkers of structural brain injury, measured at a single, very early time-point, add value beyond relevant clinical covariates when predicting unfavorable outcome 6 months after moderate-to-severe acute TBI. BIO-ProTECT utilized prospectively collected samples obtained from subjects with moderate-to-severe TBI enrolled in the ProTECT III clinical trial of progesterone.

Blood transcriptome changes after stroke in an African American population.

Objective: Molecular diagnostic medicine holds much promise to change point of care treatment. An area where additional diagnostic tools are needed is in acute stroke care, to assist in diagnosis and prognosis. Previous studies using microarray-based gene expression analysis of peripheral blood following stroke suggests this approach may be effective.

Nascent proteomes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells as a novel source for biomarker discovery in human stroke.

Background And Purpose: The proteome of newly synthesized proteins (nascent proteome) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) can be a novel source of stroke biomarkers. Changes in the PBMC nascent proteome after stroke reflect the dynamic response-in-action not detectable in the total proteome (all existing proteins) in blood. Here, we test the application of nascent proteomics as a novel approach for stroke biomarker discovery.

A novel stroke therapy of pharmacologically induced hypothermia after focal cerebral ischemia in mice.

Compelling evidence from preclinical and clinical studies has shown that mild to moderate hypothermia is neuroprotective against ischemic stroke. Clinical applications of hypothermia therapy, however, have been hindered by current methods of physical cooling, which is generally inefficient and impractical in clinical situations. In this report, we demonstrate the potential of pharmacologically induced hypothermia (PIH) by the novel neurotensin receptor 1 (NTR1) agonist ABS-201 in a focal ischemic model of adult mice.