Estimating the impact of label design on reducing the risk of medication errors by applying HEART in drug administration.

Medication errors are one of the biggest problems in healthcare. The medicines' poor labelling design (i.e. look-alike labels) is a well-recognised risk for potential confusion, wrong administration, and patient damage. Human factors and ergonomics (HFE) encourages the human-centred design of system elements, which might reduce medication errors and improve people's well-being and system performance. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the present study is twofold: (i) to use a human reliability analysis technique to evaluate a medication administration task within a simulated scenario of a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and (ii) to estimate the impact of a human-centred design (HCD) label in medication administration compared to a look-alike (LA) label. METHOD: This paper used a modified version of the human error assessment and reduction technique (HEART) to analyse a medication administration task in a simulated NICU scenario. The modified technique involved expert nurses quantifying the likelihood of unreliability of a task and rating the conditions, including medicine labels, which most affect the successful completion of the task. RESULTS: Findings suggest that error producing conditions (EPCs), such as a shortage of time available for error detection and correction, no independent checking of output, and distractions, might increase human error probability (HEP) in administering medications. Results also showed that the assessed HEP and the relative percentage of contribution to unreliability reduced by more than 40% when the HCD label was evaluated compared to the LA label. CONCLUSION: Including labelling design based on HFE might help increase human reliability when administering medications under critical conditions.

Environmental information for people with visual impairment in Mexico - or what they need and how they use it.

From an ergonomics perspective, the environmental characteristics should facilitate user activities. Matching user capabilities to demands of the environment is essential. However, about some users such as those with visual impairments, there is little information available for use in designing products and spaces. There is also a gap in information regarding the commutes and needs of the visually impaired, making it even more difficult to establish how environments should be designed to include this population.This study aimed to identify the information needs of people with visual impairment in terms of: 1) Daily life activities, 2) Wayfinding in the complex built environments, 3) Use of the signals provided by the environment 4) Characteristics of the environment which reduce the usability of a space and may put the user in danger, and 5) Safety perception. Data were obtained through a semi-structured interview to which eighteen adults responded. All had either complete blindness or severe visual impairment. For orientation, the most common references were texture or changes in ground level/surface, along with such ambient elements as noise or smells. Information presented in Braille was reported as little used, due to difficulty in finding such information. Regarding safety, participants reported feeling unsafe; most mentioned crossing the street as a major risk. Using auditory, tactile or even olfactory signals may provide important information while commuting: thus, designing signals which consider and highlight these senses is paramount. Assessing features and location of existing tactile signals is also required, to identify opportunities for improving the safety and independence of people with visual impairment.

Extraction and analysis of signatures from the Gene Expression Omnibus by the crowd.

Gene expression data are accumulating exponentially in public repositories. Reanalysis and integration of themed collections from these studies may provide new insights, but requires further human curation. Here we report a crowdsourcing project to annotate and reanalyse a large number of gene expression profiles from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). Through a massive open online course on Coursera, over 70 participants from over 25 countries identify and annotate 2,460 single-gene perturbation signatures, 839 disease versus normal signatures, and 906 drug perturbation signatures. All these signatures are unique and are manually validated for quality. Global analysis of these signatures confirms known associations and identifies novel associations between genes, diseases and drugs. The manually curated signatures are used as a training set to develop classifiers for extracting similar signatures from the entire GEO repository. We develop a web portal to serve these signatures for query, download and visualization.

High diversification of CD94 by alternative splicing in New World primates.

CD94 forms heterodimers with NKG2A, -C, or -E to constitute lectin-like natural killer cell receptors for MHC-E. Its structure differs from other C-type lectins in that the second α-helix is replaced by a loop that forms the interacting interface with the NKG2 molecules. Although CD94 has remained highly conserved mammals, several alternative splicing variants have been detected in some species. To evaluate the prevalence and significance of this phenomenon, we have cloned and sequenced CD94 cDNAs in six species of New World primates from the Cebidae and Atelidae families. Full-length sequences had a mean similarity of 96 % amongst New World primates and of 90 % to the human orthologue, with little variation in the residues interacting with NKG2 or MHC-E molecules. Despite this high conservation, a total of 14 different splice variants were identified, half of which were shared by two or more primate species. Homology-based modeling of the C-type lectin domain showed that most isoforms folded stably, although they had modifications that prevented its interaction with NKG2 and MHC-E. Two isoforms were predicted to replace the typical CD94 loop by a second α-helix, evidencing a domain fold transition from a CD94 structure to a canonical C-type lectin. These two structures were more similar to members of the CLEC lectin family than to the native CD94. Thus, CD94 has remained conserved in primates to maintain functional interactions with NKG2 and MHC-E, while at the same time has diversified by alternative splicing potentially providing additional functional scenarios.