The purpose of this quality improvement project was to evaluate the impact of clinical pharmacy specialist (CPS) involvement in the post-discharge period on 30-day readmission rates within a Veterans Affairs Healthcare System. Patients eligible for inclusion were discharged from a Veterans Affairs (VA) acute care facility with a principle or secondary diagnosis of heart failure (HF), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), or both HF and COPD from 15 October 2018 through 14 January 2019. CPSs functioning as a mid-level provider with a scope of practice conducted telephone and in-clinic medication management appointments within 7 and 21 days post-discharge for qualifying patients discharged with a principle or secondary diagnosis of HF or COPD. CPS appointments focused on medication reconciliation, ensuring continuity of care, disease state counseling, and medication management. By enhancing the role of the CPS in the post-discharge period, there was an observed decrease in 30-day COPD index (p = 0.35), HF index (p = 0.23), and all-cause (p = 0.62) readmission rates from pre- to post-intervention. The results of this intervention show that CPS intervention in the post-discharge period may reduce index and all-cause readmission rates for patients discharged with a principle or secondary discharge diagnosis of COPD or HF.
School-based interventions are essential to prevent pediatric obesity and type 2 diabetes. School environmental factors influence implementation of these interventions. This article examines how school factors acted as barriers to and facilitators of the HEALTHY intervention. The HEALTHY study was a cluster-randomized trial of a multicomponent intervention implemented in 21 schools. Interview data were analyzed to identify barriers and facilitators. Barriers included teacher frustration that intervention activities detracted from tested subjects, student resistance and misbehavior, classroom management problems, communication equipment problems, lack of teacher/staff engagement, high cost and limited availability of nutritious products, inadequate facility space, and large class sizes. Facilitators included teacher/staff engagement, effective classroom management, student engagement, schools with direct control over food service, support from school leaders, and adequate facilities and equipment. Contextual barriers and facilitators must be taken into account in the design and implementation of school-based health interventions. KEYWORDSSchool, Intervention, Prevention, Health behavior, Diabetes, Obesity Type 2 diabetes is a chronic and progressive disease with complications that can include heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, loss of vision, and limb amputation [1]. The alarming prevalence of overweight and obesity among American children and adolescents and the connection with type 2 diabetes represent a serious public health concern for the twenty-first century [2,3]. Researchers estimated that approximately one in three children born in the year 2000 in the United States will develop diabetes in their lifetime [4].Recent findings on activity and dietary patterns of children and adolescents in the United States demonstrate the presence of problematic health behaviors. Findings from the National Survey of Children's Health and the Youth Risk Behavior Survey showed that approximately 78 % of youth did not eat fruits or vegetables five or more times per day [5], 29 % of youth drank a nondiet soda at least once per day [5], 64 % of youth did not engage in 20 min of daily vigorous physical activity for most days of the week [6], and 50 % of youth engaged in sedentary behaviors, such as playing video games or watching television for multiple hours a day [6].In light of the prevalence of unhealthful dietary and activity patterns among youth and their connections with overweight, obesity, and type 2 diabetes, population-level approaches to improve environmental contexts by promoting physical activity and healthful diet are essential. Schools are ideal settings for basing public health interventions aimed at preventing the development of serious health conditions because of the existing resources and infrastructure, and aside from the home, Implications Practice: School-based obesity interventions should take into account student interests and involvement, classroom skills of teachers delivering the interv...
A strong emerging principle in the field of precision medicine is that variation in any one pharmacogene may impact clinical outcome for more than one drug. Variants tested in the acute care setting often have downstream implications for other drugs impacting chronic disease management. A flexible framework is needed as clinicians and scientists move toward deploying automated decision support for gene-based drug dosing in electronic medical records.
Seafood mislabeling occurs when a market label is inaccurate, primarily in terms of species identity, but also regarding weight, geographic origin, or other characteristics. This widespread problem allows cheaper or illegally-caught species to be marketed as species desirable to consumers. Previous studies have identified red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus) as one of the most frequently mislabeled seafood species in the United States. To quantify how common mislabeling of red snapper is across North Carolina, the Seafood Forensics class at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill used DNA barcoding to analyze samples sold as “red snapper” from restaurants, seafood markets, and grocery stores purchased in ten counties. Of 43 samples successfully sequenced and identified, 90.7% were mislabeled. Only one grocery store chain (of four chains tested) accurately labeled red snapper. The mislabeling rate for restaurants and seafood markets was 100%. Vermilion snapper (Rhomboplites aurorubens) and tilapia (Oreochromis aureus and O. niloticus) were the species most frequently substituted for red snapper (13 of 39 mislabeled samples for both taxa, or 26 of 39 mislabeled total). This study builds on previous mislabeling research by collecting samples of a specific species in a confined geographic region, allowing local vendors and policy makers to better understand the scope of red snapper mislabeling in North Carolina. This methodology is also a model for other academic institutions to engage undergraduate researchers in mislabeling data collection, sample processing, and analysis.
“Letters to the Editor and Other Comments” is a selection of comments the artist Morgan Fisher made on Facebook during Trump's presidency. Most were copies of letters he had sent to various departments at the New York Times criticizing its coverage of the president. They are “a record,” writes George Baker, “of an artist's engagement with a moment, one through which we have evidently still not passed. The practice … was almost daily, more or less constant, an insistent and repeated holding of the public sphere to account, perhaps even a willing of it into existence.”
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