Multidisciplinary Engagement Increases Medications in-Hand for Patients Hospitalized With Asthma.

Background: Asthma exacerbations in children are a leading cause of missed school days and health care use. Patients discharged from the hospital often do not fill discharge prescriptions and are at risk for future exacerbations.

Methods: A multidisciplinary team aimed to increase the percentage of patients discharged from the hospital after an asthma exacerbation with their medications in-hand from 15% to 80%.

Patient Outcomes in a Pediatric Hospital Medicine Service Staffed With Physicians and Advanced Practice Providers.

Objectives: Hospitals are employing more nurse practitioners and physician assistants on inpatient pediatric units. With this study, we compared patient outcomes in high-volume inpatient diagnoses on pediatric hospital medicine services staffed by attending physician hospitalists and residents (hospitalist and resident service [HRS]) with 1 staffed by attending physician hospitalists and advanced practice providers (HAPPS).

Methods: A historical cohort study was implemented by using administrative data for patients admitted to HRS and HAPPS from 2007 to 2011 with asthma, bronchiolitis, cellulitis, and pneumonia with severity levels 1 and 2 for all-patient refined diagnosis-related groups.

Decoupling the effects of surface chemistry and humidity on solid-state hydrolysis of aspirin in the presence of dicalcium phosphate dihydrate.

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) cantilevers were functionalized with particles of dicalcium phosphate dihydrate (DCP), and AFM, in force-displacement mode, was used to bring these probes into contact with aspirin (100) and (001) surfaces in order to investigate the effect of aspirin surface chemistry on the interaction between the two materials as a function of relative humidity (RH). The force of adhesion measurements showed a strong dependence on RH for the interactions between DCP and the aspirin (100) surface, with stronger interactions occurring at higher humudities. Relatively much weaker interactions were measured between DCP and the aspirin (001) surface under all RH conditions.

Introducing generic workers to the care of spinal cord injury.

The generic worker role extends the HCA role in spinal cord injury care. The development of the generic worker role took place at the Midland's Centre for Spinal Injuries (MCSI) in order to implement a number of government policies. There remains room for improvement, development and audit of the role.

Development of a nanowire-based test bed device for molecular electronics applications.

In this paper, we present a novel test bed system which we believe addresses several key challenges in molecular electronics, i.e., the need to fabricate metal-molecule-metal junctions that have the potential to facilitate single-molecule measurements, are easily characterized, and are reproducible.

An unusual soluble beta-turn-rich conformation of prion is involved in fibril formation and toxic to neuronal cells.

A key molecular event in prion diseases is the conversion of the prion protein (PrP) from its normal cellular form (PrPC) to the disease-specific form (PrPSc). The transition from PrPC to PrPSc involves a major conformational change, resulting in amorphous protein aggregates and fibrillar amyloid deposits with increased beta-sheet structure. Using recombinant PrP refolded into a beta-sheet-rich form (beta-PrP) we have studied the fibrillization of beta-PrP both in solution and in association with raft membranes.