Cost analysis and provider satisfaction with pediatrician in triage.

Objectives: The goals of this study were to (1) conduct a cost-benefit analysis, from a hospital's perspective, of using a pediatrician in triage (PIT) in the emergency department (ED) and (2) assess the impact of a physician in triage on provider satisfaction.

Methods: This was a prospective, controlled trial of PIT (intervention) versus conventional registered nurse-driven triage (control), at an urban, academic, tertiary level pediatric ED, which led to a cost-benefit analysis by looking at the effect that PIT has on length of stay (LOS) and thus on ED revenue. Provider satisfaction was assessed through surveys.

Automated discrimination of polymerase chain reaction products with closely related sequences by software-based detection of characteristic peaks in product ion spectra.

A computer-based method is described for automated detection of peaks in product ion spectra that allows discrimination of structurally related polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products. PCR products of K-ras mutants having single nucleotide substitutions and isomeric sequence changes in positions 1 and 2 of codon 12 (e.g.

Electrospray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry and quadrupole mass spectrometry for genotyping single nucleotide substitutions in intact polymerase chain reaction products in K-ras and p53.

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and mutations were genotyped for both homozygous and heterozygous PCR products of p53, a tumor suppressor gene, and K-ras, an oncogene, using electrospray ionization (ESI) quadrupole time-of-flight (Q-TOF) mass spectrometry (MS) and ESI-quadrupole MS analysis. Mass accuracy was adequate for both instruments to detect genetic changes in homozygous PCR products, including the most difficult to distinguish (adenine [A] --> thymine [T] transversion). However, for the detection of A --> T shifts (9.