The Patient Experience in Ontario 2020: What Is Possible?

Words are important. They signal an intention behind a thought. So when Ontario's Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care publishes an action plan (Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, 2012) that declares itself to be "obsessively patient-centred," curiosity ensues and terms abound.

Patient Engagement: We Need to Get on With It.

We are extremely grateful to each of the commentators for their thoughtful responses to "The Patient Experience in Ontario 2020: What is Possible?" It was helpful to hear the perspective and insights of authors from different jurisdictions and to benefit from their knowledge and experience. There are a number of themes that emerged from the commentaries that we would like to highlight.

High-intensity electrostatic-field exposure system for cultured biological cells.

We describe a new system for exposing cultured biological cells that have been plated on coverslips to strong electrostatic fields at magnitudes greater than 10(3) V/cm. Techniques are described that make use of mineral oil to render insignificant electrical conduction currents (total leakage current is less than 1.0 nA or less than 0.

Temporary suppression of Kidd system antigen expression accompanied by transient production of anti-Jk3.

This report describes an 85-year-old woman of Russian Jewish extraction whose red cell Kidd system phenotype changed during the 2 years in which her blood was studied. Certainly once, and perhaps twice, the patient's phenotype changed from Jk(a+b-) to Jk(a-b-). On both occasions, it reverted to Jk(a+b-).

Homogeneous magnetic fields influence pancreatic islet function in vitro.

Pancreatic islets were isolated from newborn rats and exposed to homogeneous magnetic fields for 48 hours. Under these conditions insulin release, measured at low (5.6 mM) and high (16.