Correction: A quality improvement initiative for COPD patients: A cost analysis.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

A quality improvement initiative for COPD patients: A cost analysis.

The objective of this analysis was to evaluate and report on the economic impact of implementing an integrated, quality, and operational improvement program on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) care from acute through post-acute care settings. This initiative was established in a cohort of 12 hospitals in Alabama and sought to address COPD readmission through improved workflows pertaining to early diagnosis, efficient care transitions, and patient visibility across the entire care episode. Implementation of the initiative was influenced by lean principles, particularly cross-functional agreement of workflows to improve COPD care delivery and outcomes.

A compact high-resolution X-ray powder diffractometer.

A new powder diffractometer operating in transmission mode is described. It can work as a rapid very compact instrument or as a high-resolution instrument, and the sample preparation is simplified. The incident beam optics create pure Cu α radiation, giving rise to peak widths of ∼0.

Atypically high insulin responses to some foods relate to sugars and satiety.

Much research has focused on how the glycemic index (GI) of the diets of healthy people relates to long-term risk for coronary heart disease, stroke, and non-insulin dependent diabetes. Low-GI diets appear to produce some of their beneficial effects largely by moderating insulinemic responses to meals. Wolever and Bolognesi (1996) have derived a formula for predicting the insulinemic index (II) from the GI for starchy foods.