Creating a hospital-community infrastructure: challenges and benefits.

With rising public expectations and demands for increased accountability, hospitals will be even more challenged by their local communities to implement strategies such as those developed at SMH to enable community participation that assists the hospital in serving its local population into the future. In response to unique health needs of its local community, SMH created an Inner City Health (ICH) Program in the early 1990s to provide comprehensive inpatient, ambulatory, and community outreach services. To build on its philosophy to reduce barriers to health for disadvantaged populations, the ICH Research Program, the only one of its kind in Canada, was also established. This paper will describe and explore the formalised infrastructure between SMH and the community; its evolution, as well as SMH's involvement with its community in context of the hospital's relationships with its Board of Directors, the Toronto teaching hospital system, media and advocacy groups. The role of ICH research in influencing evidence-based clinical practice, innovations in health science education and government policy will also be discussed as part of the SMH's hospital-community infrastructure.

Simultaneous radial, femoral, and aortic arterial pressures during human cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the validity of interchanging arterial sites and their responses to graded doses of epinephrine during human cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). DESIGN: Consecutive case series. SETTING: Large, urban Emergency Department. PATIENTS: Adult, normothermic, nonhemorrhagic cardiac arrest patients. INTERVENTIONS: While receiving advanced cardiac life support, patients received right atrial (n = 40), aortic (n = 40), radial (n = 40), and femoral (n = 17) artery catheters. Pressures were measured simultaneously at baseline, after 0.01 mg/kg and 0.2 mg/kg of epinephrine. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: The mean aortic compression-phase pressure was 9.3 +/- 10 (SD), 8.1 +/- 11, and 4.4 +/- 9.5 mm Hg higher than radial artery pressure at baseline, after 0.01 mg/kg, and 0.2 mg/kg of epinephrine, respectively (all statistically significant). When compared with the femoral artery at the same time points, the mean aortic compression-phase pressure was also 3.0 +/- 6.8, 1.9 +/- 8, and 0.6 +/- 7.7 mm Hg higher, respectively (none statistically significant). The aortic relaxation-phase pressure was 1.3 +/- 3.6, 1.1 +/- 3.8, and 1.6 +/- 2.5 mm Hg lower than the radial artery at baseline, after 0.01 mg/kg and 0.2 mg/kg of epinephrine, respectively (all statistically significant). When compared with the femoral artery at the same time points, the aortic relaxation-phase pressure was 0.6 +/- 2.0, 0.3 +/- 3.3, and 0.3 +/- 2.4 mm Hg lower, respectively (none statistically significant). CONCLUSIONS: Radial artery relaxation-phase pressure, although statistically higher, correlated with aortic relaxation-phase pressure. Femoral artery relaxation-phase pressure was not statistically different from aortic relaxation-phase pressure. Aortic pressure was statistically higher and had a lower correlation with radial artery pressures during compression phase. The aortic to radial artery and aortic to femoral artery compression-phase gradients abated with increasing doses of epinephrine therapy. Caution must be used when substituting compression-phase pressure obtained at radial or femoral artery sites for aortic pressure during human CPR. Coronary artery perfusion pressures obtained with radial and femoral arteries correlate with aortic pressure when measuring the response to vasopressor therapy during CPR when an interpretable waveform exists.

One hospital's trip up the down staircase.

This study illustrates one hospital's response to fiscal restraint. An Edmonton facility was able to reduce its budget while changing its strategic direction. During a planning process the hospital identified clinical needs that were not being met and, subsequently, reduced less utilized programs while allowing funding of new programs. This article identifies notable features of the budget reduction, provides information required to duplicate the process, and concludes with an analysis of the merits and shortcomings of such an approach.