The power of engagement: implementation of a career ladder program.

At Baystate Health in Massachusetts, the development and implementation of a career ladder program was implemented to reduce turnover and to improve employee satisfaction, morale, and recruitment efforts. There was significant initial expenditure in the program, as a result of promoting the large number of employees with significant experience and seniority. A smaller number of staff are expected to apply for advancement during successive cycles, allowing for decreased incremental expense going forward.

mwr Xer site-specific recombination is hypersensitive to DNA supercoiling.

The multiresistance plasmid pJHCMW1, first identified in a Klebsiella pneumoniae strain isolated from a neonate with meningitis, includes a Xer recombination site, mwr, with unique characteristics. Efficiency of resolution of mwr-containing plasmid dimers is strongly dependent on the osmotic pressure of the growth medium. An increase in supercoiling density of plasmid DNA was observed as the osmotic pressure of the growth culture decreased.

Klebsiella pneumoniae multiresistance plasmid pMET1: similarity with the Yersinia pestis plasmid pCRY and integrative conjugative elements.

Background: Dissemination of antimicrobial resistance genes has become an important public health and biodefense threat. Plasmids are important contributors to the rapid acquisition of antibiotic resistance by pathogenic bacteria.

Principal Findings: The nucleotide sequence of the Klebsiella pneumoniae multiresistance plasmid pMET1 comprises 41,723 bp and includes Tn1331.

From talk to action: what performance improvement is really all about.

In today's ever increasingly competitive healthcare environment, our customers are demanding more efficient, easily accessible, and high quality service, and we are being asked to do more and more with oftentimes limited resources. As such, continually evaluating our department's operations, identifying opportunities for improvement, and commencing upon improvement initiatives is essential for an organization, and an administrator, to be successful. This article presents a "call to action" for the initiation of on-going performonce improvement efforts, and provides an overview of sample tools and strategies necessary to both identify opportunities for improvement and develop effective strategies to accomplish them.

Sublethal concentrations of the aminoglycoside amikacin interfere with cell division without affecting chromosome dynamics.

Aminoglycosides bind to the 16S rRNA at the tRNA acceptor site (A site) and disturb protein synthesis by inducing codon misreading. We investigated Escherichia coli cell elongation and division, as well as the dynamics of chromosome replication and segregation, in the presence of sublethal concentrations of amikacin (AMK). The fates of the chromosome ori and ter loci were monitored by visualization by using derivatives of LacI and TetR fused to fluorescent proteins in E.

Differences in resolution of mwr-containing plasmid dimers mediated by the Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli XerC recombinases: potential implications in dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes.

Xer-mediated dimer resolution at the mwr site of the multiresistance plasmid pJHCMW1 is osmoregulated in Escherichia coli containing either the Escherichia coli Xer recombination machinery or Xer recombination elements from K. pneumoniae. In the presence of K.