Piloting a Hospital Pharmacy Performance Model in the Face of Province-Wide Implementation of Activity-Based Funding in Quebec Health Care Centres.

Background: In the face of province-wide implementation of activity-based hospital funding in Quebec, a need arose to effectively measure pharmacists' contributions along the patient care trajectory and to enable pharmacy benchmarking using valid performance indicators.

Objectives: A 3-phase project was initiated to measure the performance and impact of pharmacists and pharmacy departments. Phases 2 and 3, described here, focused on gradually implementing, in various health care centres, the priority indicators selected in phase 1.

Surgical Technique for Sentinel Lymph Node Sampling in Presumed Early-stage Ovarian Cancer.

Study Objective: Surgical staging for apparent early-stage ovarian cancer includes systematic pelvic and para-aortic lymph node evaluation to detect occult stage III disease [1]. Although, lymphadenectomy procedure is associated with increased duration of surgery and a 13% risk of lymphocyst formation [2]. Sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy is still investigational, and no standardized approach has been studied.