Improving a Urine Culture Callback Follow-up System in a Pediatric Emergency Department.

Introduction: Delays in appropriate treatment and unnecessary antibiotic use for urinary tract infections (UTIs) increase the risk for serious adverse events and the potential for antibiotic resistance. The purposes of this quality improvement project were to decrease emergency department laboratory result follow-up time and increase the number of patients who are notified to stop taking an empiric antibiotic.

Method: Nine months of Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles were implemented in a pediatric emergency department and network of care sites.

Junglemobile: a mobile injury-prevention program for young children.

Objective: To evaluate the child passenger safety curriculum of the Junglemobile, a traveling injury prevention program for young children.

Design: Cross-sectional evaluation with self-controls, convenience sample.

Setting: School and community events in rural Colorado, Wyoming, and western Nebraska where the Junglemobile participated for the years 2000-2003.

The lack of motor vehicle occupant restraint use in children arriving at school.

Background: Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of mortality for children aged 4-14 in the United States. Many children are driven daily to school, increasing their exposure to potential injury, especially if they are not appropriately restrained. Observing the level of motor vehicle occupant restraint (MVOR) use upon school arrival could lead to valuable information for the development of an injury prevention program targeted to this population.

A Medicaid eHealth program: an analysis of benefits to users and nonusers.

Objective: To describe parental use of an Internet-based educational and emotional support system, in a regional NICU program.

Methods: Baby CareLink was installed in NICUs in 4 Denver area hospitals in 2003. Parents were offered access from hospital terminals and from any other Internet access point.

Collaborative Approaches to e-Health: Valuable for Users and Non-users.

Objective: To describe parental use of an Internet-based educational and emotional support system, in a regional NICU program.

Methods: Baby CareLink was installed in NICUs in 4 Denver area hospitals in 2003. Parents were offered access from hospital terminals and from any other Internet access point.

Childhood femur fractures, associated injuries, and sociodemographic risk factors: a population-based study.

Objective: The objectives of this study were to determine the incidence of femur fractures in Colorado children, to assess underlying causes, to determine the prevalence and predictors of associated injuries, and to identify potentially modifiable risk factors.

Methods: The study population included all Colorado residents who were aged 0 to 17 years at the time of injury between January 1, 1998, and December 31, 2001. Cases of femur fracture were ascertained using the population-based Colorado Trauma Registry and International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification codes 820.

Resistance to antimalarials in Southeast Asia and genetic polymorphisms in pfmdr1.

Resistance to antimalarial drugs is a public health problem worldwide. Molecular markers for drug-resistant malaria, such as pfcrt and pfmdr1 polymorphisms, could serve as useful surveillance tools. To evaluate this possibility, sequence polymorphisms in pfcrt (position 76) and pfmdr1 (positions 86, 184, 1034, 1042, and 1246) and in vitro drug sensitivities were measured for 65 Plasmodium falciparum isolates from Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Bangladesh.

Recrudescence in artesunate-treated patients with falciparum malaria is dependent on parasite burden not on parasite factors.

Artemisinin derivatives are first-line antimalarial drugs in Thailand. No firm evidence of clinically relevant artemisinin resistance exists. When used as monotherapy, artesunate has been associated with a high treatment failure (recrudescence) rate, which could be due to low-level artemisinin resistance.

Utility of whole blood hemostatometry using the clot signature analyzer for assessment of hemostasis in cardiac surgery.

Background: A hemostatic monitor capable of rapid, accurate detection of clinical coagulopathy within the operating room could improve management of bleeding after cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). The Clot Signature Analyzer is a hemostatometer that measures global hemostasis in whole blood. The authors hypothesized that point-of-care hemostatometry could detect a clinical coagulopathic state in cardiac surgical patients.