Efficacy of quality improvement and patient safety workshops for students: a pilot study.

Background: While the Association of American Medical Colleges encourages medical schools to incorporate quality improvement and patient safety (QI/PS) into their curriculum, medical students continue to have limited QI/PS exposure. To prepare medical students for careers that involve QI/PS, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement chapter at an allopathic medical school and school of allied health professions initiated self-directed learning by offering student-led workshops to equip learners with skills to improve the quality and safety of healthcare processes.

Methods: In this prospective cohort study, workshops were hosted for medical students between 2015 and 2018 on five QI/PS topics: Process Mapping, Root-Cause Analysis (RCA), Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) Cycles, Evidence Based Medicine (EBM), and Patient Handoffs.

Endothelial Cell Senescence Increases Traction Forces due to Age-Associated Changes in the Glycocalyx and SIRT1.

Endothelial cell (EC) aging and senescence are key events in atherogenesis and cardiovascular disease development. Age-associated changes in the local mechanical environment of blood vessels have also been linked to atherosclerosis. However, the extent to which cell senescence affects mechanical forces generated by the cell is unclear.

The Effect of Stress-Induced Senescence on Aging Human Cord Blood-Derived Endothelial Cells.

Purpose: We sought to determine the effect of stress-induced senescence on the permeability to albumin of aging endothelial progenitor cells.

Methods: Human umbilical cord blood derived endothelial cells (hCB-ECs) and human aortic endothelial cells (HAECs) were treated with 200 μM HO and permeability to FITC-bovine serum albumin was measured. Some samples were subsequently treated with 100μM 8-pCPT-2'-O-Me-cAMP, a cAMP analog that activates the Epac1-Rap1 pathway.