Hospital hand hygiene compliance improves with increased monitoring and immediate feedback.

Background: Health care-associated infections are serious complications impacting 2 million patients and accounting for approximately 100,000 deaths per year. In the present study, we evaluated the effectiveness of a new hand hygiene monitoring program (HHMP) and measured the sustainability of this effectiveness over a 1-year period.

Methods: The HHMP consisted of 4 key components: extensive education, conspicuous and visible monitors, immediate feedback concerning compliance to health care workers, and real-time data dissemination to leadership.

Combinatorial neural codes from a mathematical coding theory perspective.

Shannon's seminal 1948 work gave rise to two distinct areas of research: information theory and mathematical coding theory. While information theory has had a strong influence on theoretical neuroscience, ideas from mathematical coding theory have received considerably less attention. Here we take a new look at combinatorial neural codes from a mathematical coding theory perspective, examining the error correction capabilities of familiar receptive field codes (RF codes).