Performance of Fluid Infusion Systems in the Changing Atmospheric Pressures Encountered in Aviation.

Introduction: With the increasing use of aeromedical transport for critically ill patients, it is essential to understand the impact of pressure changes on drug infusion delivery systems. As airplanes ascend and descend, gases/bubbles are released from solutions when ambient pressure decreases and dissolves when pressure increases. This may affect mechanical fluid delivery systems and cause clinically significant changes, especially within a critical care setting.

An exploration of governance in teaching hospitals in the Netherlands focused on educational objectives.

Background: Many countries are improving medical education in teaching hospitals through more focus on internal quality assurance, for example by creating new stakeholders like hospital-wide education committees. Adequate oversight is thought essential to ensure the quality of medical education. How teaching hospitals distribute roles and responsibilities for quality control across educational stakeholders to organize this oversight is rarely investigated.

System-failing creativity in health care.

Introduction: Health care professionals often generate novel solutions to solve problems during day-to-day patient care. However, less is known about generating novel and useful (i.e.

Cochlear Implant Electrode Placement and Music Perception.

Importance: Cochlear implants enable improvements in speech perception, but music perception outcomes remain variable. Image-guided cochlear implant programming has emerged as a potential programming strategy for increasing the quality of spectral information delivered through the cochlear implant to improve outcomes.

Objectives: To perform 2 experiments, the first of which modeled the variance in music perception scores as a function of electrode positioning factors, and the second of which evaluated image-guided cochlear implant programming as a strategy to improve music perception with a cochlear implant.

The relationship between channel interaction, electrode placement, and speech perception in adult cochlear implant users.

This study (1) characterized the effects of channel interaction using spectral blurring, (2) evaluated an image-guided electrode selection (IGES) method aiming to reduce channel interaction, and (3) investigated the impact of electrode placement factors on the change in performance by condition. Twelve adult MED-EL (Innsbruck, Austria) cochlear implant recipients participated. Performance was compared across six conditions: baseline (no blurring), all blurred, apical blurred, middle blurred, basal blurred, and IGES.