Effectiveness of automated notification and customer service call centers for timely and accurate reporting of critical values: a laboratory medicine best practices systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objective: To conduct a systematic review of the evidence available in support of automated notification methods and call centers and to acknowledge other considerations in making evidence-based recommendations for best practices in improving the timeliness and accuracy of critical value reporting.

Design And Methods: This review followed the Laboratory Medicine Best Practices (LMBP) review methods (Christenson, et al. 2011).

Effectiveness of barcoding for reducing patient specimen and laboratory testing identification errors: a Laboratory Medicine Best Practices systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objectives: This is the first systematic review of the effectiveness of barcoding practices for reducing patient specimen and laboratory testing identification errors.

Design And Methods: The CDC-funded Laboratory Medicine Best Practices Initiative systematic review methods for quality improvement practices were used.

Results: A total of 17 observational studies reporting on barcoding systems are included in the body of evidence; 10 for patient specimens and 7 for point-of-care testing.

Effectiveness of practices to reduce blood culture contamination: a Laboratory Medicine Best Practices systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objectives: This article is a systematic review of the effectiveness of three practices for reducing blood culture contamination rates: venipuncture, phlebotomy teams, and prepackaged preparation/collection (prep) kits.

Design And Methods: The CDC-funded Laboratory Medicine Best Practices Initiative systematic review methods for quality improvement practices were used.

Results: Studies included as evidence were: 9 venipuncture (vs.

Parental occupation and neural tube defect-affected pregnancies among Mexican Americans.

In a case-control study, we examined whether parental occupational exposures were related to neural tube defect (NTD)-affected pregnancies among Mexican Americans living along the Texas-Mexico border. Case women were 184 Mexican-American women with NTD-affected pregnancies; control women were 225 study-area residents who delivered normal babies during the same period as the case women. The women were interviewed in person about maternal and paternal occupations and work exposures during the periconceptional period.

Prospective randomized clinical trials of new quinolones versus beta-lactam antibiotics in lower respiratory tract infections.

In four prospective randomized clinical trials between November 1983 and March 1988, we studied 270 patients with severe bacterial infections, mainly lower respiratory tract ones. We compared ciprofloxacin and imipenem/cilastatin in the first study, ciprofloxacin and ofloxacin in the second study, ciprofloxacin and ticarcillin/clavulanic acid in the third study, and ofloxacin and cefpirome in the fourth study. A total of 90 pneumonias, 139 LRTIs, 22 septicaemias and 19 other bacterial infections were treated; the dominant pathogens were Pseudomonas aeruginosa and enterobacteria.