Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Resident Indigent Care Clinic Optimization by Improving "No-Show" Rates.

Absenteeism among clinical patients is a significant source of inefficiency in the modern American health care system. Routine absenteeism limits access to care for indigent patients, thus providing additional strain on the health care system and timely administration of care.This quality improvement project set out to quantify, understand, and potentially reduce patient absenteeism in our weekly plastic and reconstructive surgery resident indigent care clinic.

New approach for characterization of gelatin biopolymer films using proton behavior determined by low field 1H NMR spectrometry.

The behavior of protons in biopolymer films (BFs) formed with gelatin, water, and glycerol was investigated at various relative humidities (RHs) and concentrations of glycerol using a low field 1H NMR spectrometer. At a RH of approximately 0%, the distributed spin-spin relaxation times (T2) of protons in BFs showed two components: a rapidly relaxing proton with the shortest T2 derived from protons in the rigid backbone of the gelatin polymer such as CH1-, CH2-, and CH3-, and a slowly relaxing component with longer T2 from protons of the functional groups in amino acid residues in gelatin such as -OH, -COOH, and -NH3. These two components are referred to as nonexchangeable (T2N) and exchangeable protons (T2E), respectively, indicating the different mobility of the protons.