Leakage associated with urinary catheter usage: a design challenge.

Indwelling bladder catheter-associated leakage, or catheter bypassing, is a frequently experienced problem, necessitating a carefully planned intervention. Once a bladder catheter is in place, urine may flow intermittently between the catheter shaft and the urethra mucosa, or from around the catheter when inserted suprapubically. A review of the literature identified several reasons for this leakage, including catheter size and anatomical abnormalities.

Internal reporting system to improve a pharmacy's medication distribution process.

Purpose: The current pharmacy occurrence-reporting system in an institution was reviewed, and an internal procedure that would provide data to improve the medication-use process was developed.

Summary: In a rural, 353-bed, tertiary care academic center, the effectiveness of a departmental occurrence-reporting system was determined over a nine-month period to increase occurrence reporting within the pharmacy and allow administrators to identify specific areas for improvement within the medication distribution process. These events were identified according to the number and type of near misses documented by pharmacy staff.

Inter-rater reliability and comfort in the application of a basic life support termination of resuscitation clinical prediction rule for out of hospital cardiac arrest.

Study Objective: This study evaluates inter-rater reliability and comfort of BLS providers with the application of an out-of-hospital Basic Life Support Termination of Resuscitation (BLS TOR) clinical prediction rule. This rule suggests that continued BLS cardiac resuscitation is futile and can be terminated in the field if the following three conditions are met: (1) no return of spontaneous circulation; (2) no shock given prior to transport; (3) cardiac arrest not witnessed by EMS personnel.

Methods: Providers hypothetically applied the rule and rated their comfort level on a five-point Likert-type scale, from "very comfortable" to "very uncomfortable" during the prospective validation of a BLS TOR clinical prediction rule in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest conducted in 12 rural and urban communities [Morrison LJ, Visentin LM, Kiss A, et al.