Bacterial contamination of mobile handwashing stations in hospital settings in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Background: As part of the containment of the COVID-19 pandemic, mobile handwashing stations (mHWS) were deployed in healthcare facilities in low-resource settings. We assessed mHWS in hospitals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for contamination with Gram-negative bacteria.

Methods: Water and soap samples of in-use mHWS in hospitals in Kinshasa and Lubumbashi were quantitatively cultured for Gram-negative bacteria which were tested for antibiotic susceptibility.

Impact of tumour epithelial subtype on circulating microRNAs in breast cancer patients.

While a range of miRNAs have been shown to be dysregulated in the circulation of patients with breast cancer, little is known about the relationship between circulating levels and tumour characteristics. The aim of this study was to analyse alterations in circulating miRNA expression during tumour progression in a murine model of breast cancer, and to detemine the clinical relevance of identified miRNAs at both tissue and circulating level in patient samples. Athymic nude mice received a subcutaneous or mammary fat pad injection of MDA-MB-231 cells.

Benefits of ICT adoption and use in regional general medical practices: a pilot study.

This paper presents a pilot study of benefits derived from information and communications technology(ICT) adoption and use in medical practices in regional Australia. The study involved 122 regional medical practitioners. The results show that like the more general small business sector, the perception of certain benefits is associated with the size of the practice (in terms of employee levels) and/or the gender of the respondent practitioner.

A multi-method approach to assessing health information systems end users' training needs.

Many existing training programs for Health Information Systems (HIS) do not adequately satisfy end users' needs nor meet training objectives. This is because they do not envisage the problems that users may encounter when performing specific tasks. Therefore the first priority for the development of an effective training program is to precisely assess the end users' training needs, a process called Training Needs Assessment (TNA).