Impact of interoperability of smart infusion pumps and an electronic medical record in critical care.

Purpose: To describe the benefits of smart infusion pump interoperability with an electronic medical record (EMR) system in an adult intensive care unit (ICU) setting.

Summary: In order to assess the impact of smart infusion pump and EMR interoperability, we observed whether there were changes in the frequency of electronic medication administration record (eMAR) documentation of dose titrations in epinephrine and norepinephrine infusions in the ICU setting. As a secondary endpoint, we examined whether smart pump/EMR interoperability had any impact on the rate of alerts triggered by the dose-error reduction software.

Evaluation and justification of clinical pharmacy services.

Pharmacy managers often must justify clinical pharmacy services (CPSs). This can be done by generalizing evidence from the literature or by conducting local evaluations. In either case, it is important that the clinical, humanistic or economic benefits of CPSs are considered, and limitations of the studies recognized.

Medically supervised water-only fasting in the treatment of borderline hypertension.

Background: Hypertension-related diseases are the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in industrially developed societies. Surprisingly, 68% of all mortality attributed to high blood pressure (BP) occurs with systolic BP between 120 and 140 mm Hg and diastolic BP below 90 mm Hg. Dietary and lifestyle modifications are effective in the treatment of borderline hypertension.