Perspectives on trauma-informed care from mothers with a history of childhood maltreatment: a qualitative study.

Women who experienced abuse or neglect as children are more likely to have health problems during pregnancy and postpartum, but can be reluctant to seek help due to a lack of trauma-informed services. As part of a larger mixed method study, this component aimed to obtain qualitative data from trauma-exposed new mothers about their health care preferences during the perinatal period with the ultimate goal to design personalized, supportive interventions. Fifty-two trauma-exposed mothers completed a semi-structured interview at seven months postpartum about health care preferences including ideas for programs that promote wellness, thoughts about the influences of being a new mother and possible names for a program serving trauma-exposed mothers.

Surgical management of a neonate with congenitally corrected transposition of the great vessels, hypoplastic right aortic arch, and Ebstein anomaly.

We report a neonate with a primary diagnosis of congenitally corrected transposition (ccTGA) of the great vessels, hypoplastic right aortic arch, and a severely regurgitant Ebstein tricuspid valve (TV). During the fetal period, she was listed for heart transplantation, and two weeks after birth due to a deterioration of her general condition, we performed a Norwood-Sano modified procedure. After 58 days a donor heart became available and the baby successfully received a orthotopic heart transplantation.

Inhibition of human α-methylacyl CoA racemase (AMACR): a target for prostate cancer.

The enzyme α-methylacyl CoA racemase (AMACR) is involved in the metabolism of branched-chain fatty acids and has been identified as a promising therapeutic target for prostate cancer. By using the recently available human AMACR from HEK293 kidney cell cultures, we tested a series of new rationally designed inhibitors to determine the structural requirements in the acyl component. An N-methylthiocarbamate (Ki=98 nM), designed to mimic the proposed enzyme-bound enolate, was found to be the most potent AMACR inhibitor reported to date.

Estimating return on investment in translational research: methods and protocols.

Assessing the value of clinical and translational research funding on accelerating the translation of scientific knowledge is a fundamental issue faced by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and its Clinical and Translational Awards (CTSAs). To address this issue, the authors propose a model for measuring the return on investment (ROI) of one key CTSA program, the clinical research unit (CRU). By estimating the economic and social inputs and outputs of this program, this model produces multiple levels of ROI: investigator, program, and institutional estimates.

Health informatics community priming in a small nation: the New Zealand experience.

New Zealand (NZ) has a rapidly expanding health information technology (IT) development industry and wide-ranging use of informatics, especially in the primary health sector. The New Zealand government through the National Health IT Board (NHITB) has promised to provide shared care health records of core information for all New Zealanders by 2014. One of the major barriers to improvement in IT use in healthcare is the dearth of trained and interested clinicians, management and technical workforce.

Forecasting natural aquifer discharge using a numerical model and convolution.

If the nature of groundwater sources and sinks can be determined or predicted, the data can be used to forecast natural aquifer discharge. We present a procedure to forecast the relative contribution of individual aquifer sources and sinks to natural aquifer discharge. Using these individual aquifer recharge components, along with observed aquifer heads for each January, we generate a 1-year, monthly spring discharge forecast for the upcoming year with an existing numerical model and convolution.

Building an educated health informatics workforce--the New Zealand experience.

New Zealand has a rapidly expanding health information technology (IT) development industry and wide-ranging use of informatics, especially in the primary health sector. The New Zealand government through the National Health IT Board (NHITB) has promised to provide shared care health records of core information for all New Zealanders by 2014. One of the major barriers to improvement in IT use in healthcare is the dearth of trained and interested clinicians, management and technical workforce.

Successful pediatric orthotopic heart transplantation after three runs of mechanical circulatory support.

Mechanical circulatory support has become a well-established therapy to bridge patients with intractable heart failure to either heart transplantation or recovery. We report our experience of a child with a diagnosis of unexplained familial dilated cardiomyopathy, who presented with cyclical episodes of severe life-threatening heart failure treated with 3 different runs of MCS between August 2008 and May 2011.

Repeated supra-maximal sprint cycling with and without sodium bicarbonate supplementation induces endothelial microparticle release.

Under normal homeostatic conditions, the endothelium releases microparticles (MPs), which are known to increase under stressful conditions and in disease states. CD105 (endoglin) and CD106 (vascular cell adhesion molecule-1) are expressed on the surface of endothelial cells and increased expression in response to stress may be observed. A randomised-controlled double-blinded study aimed to examine the use of endothelial MPs as a marker for the state of one's endothelium, as well as whether maintaining acid-base homeostasis affects the release of these MPs.

The impact of mechanical circulatory support on outcomes in paediatric heart transplantation.

Objectives: Internationally, the number of donors for cardiac transplantation has remained static, while the number of patients requiring transplantation for congenital heart disease (CHD) has increased. Although the availability of mechanical circulatory support (MCS) may increase the number of transplants performed by reducing deaths while waiting, it may also lead to increased morbidity post-transplantation. We sought to assess the impact of mechanical support on post-transplant outcomes in a single centre.

Using lean Six Sigma to improve hospital based outpatient imaging satisfaction.

Within the hospital based imaging department at Methodist Willowbrook, outpatient, inpatient, and emergency patients are all performed on the same equipment with the same staff. The critical nature of the patient is the deciding factor as to who gets done first and in what order procedures are performed. After an aggressive adoption of Intentional Tools, the imaging department was finally able to move from a two year mean Press Ganey, outpatient satisfaction average score of 91.

Effects of inhaled corticosteroids on voice production in healthy adults.

The isolated effects of inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) on voice production were examined in 30 healthy adults with no known pre-existing airway disease. All participants followed a daily ICS treatment regime of 500 μg in the morning and evening over a 6-day period. Sustained vowels and connected speech samples were audio recorded before, during, and after the ICS regime.