Adapting a community pharmacy intervention to improve medication safety.

BACKGROUND: Community pharmacies are an ideal location to address challenges of over-the-counter medication safety, yet many successful interventions are only tested in a few pharmacies without expansion, creating unrealized opportunities to improve patient care on a larger scale. Scaling up to numerous pharmacies can be challenging because each community pharmacy has unique needs and layouts and requires individualized adaptation. OBJECTIVES: This paper reports techniques for (a) adapting a community pharmacy intervention to fit the unique physical layout and patient needs of health system pharmacy sites without increasing staff workload, (b) identifying strategies to gather feedback on adaptations from stakeholders, and (c) developing materials to share with pharmacy champions for them to independently implement and sustain the intervention in their organization. PRACTICE DESCRIPTION: The study team collaborated with Aurora Pharmacy, Inc to develop an intervention designed to increase awareness of safe over-the-counter medication use for older adults. PRACTICE INNOVATION: Senior Safe, a community pharmacy-based intervention, was designed, implemented, and tested using the Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, and Sustainment implementation framework. EVALUATION METHODS: Senior Safe was adapted through pilot testing and a randomized control trial. Feedback was collected from key stakeholders, including pharmacy staff, older adults, and a research advisory group. RESULTS: A finalized version of Senior Safe, as well as an implementation package, was provided to Aurora Pharmacy to integrate into all 63 sites. CONCLUSION: This multiphase study illustrated that refining an intervention is possible and welcomed by pharmacy staff, but it requires time, resources, and funds to create an impactful, sustainable community pharmacy intervention.

Unmet Supportive Care Needs Among Cancer Patients in Sub-Saharan African Countries: A Mixed Method Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

INTRODUCTION: Supportive cancer care is vital to reducing the current disparities in cancer outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), including poor survival and low quality of life, and ultimately achieving equity in cancer care. This is the first review aimed to evaluate the extent of unmet supportive care needs and identify their contributing factors among patients with cancer in SSA. METHODS: Six electronic databases (CINAHL, Embase, Medline [Ovid], PsycINFO, PubMed, and Cochrane Library of Databases] were systematically searched. Studies that addressed one or more domains of unmet supportive cancer care needs were included. Findings were analyzed using narrative analysis and meta-analysis, as appropriate. RESULT: Eleven articles out of 2732 were retained in the review. The pooled prevalence of perceived unmet need for cancer care in SSA was 63% (95% CI: 45, 81) for physical, 59% (95% CI: 45, 72) for health information and system, 58% (95% CI: 42, 74) for psychological, 44% (95% CI: 29, 59) for patient care and support, and 43% (95% CI: 23, 63) for sexual. Older age, female sex, rural residence, advanced cancer stage, and low access to health information were related to high rates of multiple unmet needs within supportive care domains. CONCLUSION: In SSA, optimal cancer care provision was low, up to two-thirds of patients reported unmet needs for one or more domains. Strengthening efforts to develop comprehensive and integrated systems for supportive care services are keys to improving the clinical outcome, survival, and quality of life of cancer patients in SSA.

Estimación de factores de riesgo del retardo en la cicatrización en pacientes quemados / Estimation of Risk Factors for Delayed Healing in Burn Patients

Introducción: La atención al paciente con retardo en la cicatrización parte de la optimización en sus cuidados. La reversión del cuadro requiere del conocimiento de los factores de riesgo. La literatura nacional e internacional describen factores locales o relacionados con la herida y generales o relacionados al estado general del paciente. Objetivo: Estimar los factores de riesgo del retardo en la cicatrización en pacientes quemados. Métodos: Estudio analítico de casos y control en pacientes quemados ingresados en el Servicio de Caumatología del Hospital Universitario Manuel Ascunce Domenech en el período 2017 a 2021. La población objeto de estudio comprendió a 267 pacientes. Se calculó el odds ratio y el intervalo de confianza. Resultados: El desarrollo de retardo en la cicatrización resultó tres veces y media más probable en pacientes quemados con 45 años y más, odds ratio 3,591. Además, fue nueve veces más probable en enfermedades crónicas asociadas, hasta seis veces en quemaduras no accidentales, 163 veces en la complicación local y 89 veces en la complicación sistémica. Conclusiones: Los factores de riesgo del retardo en la cicatrización en pacientes quemados identificados fueron los siguientes: edad de 45 años y más, presencia de comorbilidad, el fuego directo como agente causal, el modo de producción no accidental, la presencia de más de seis zonas anatómicas afectadas, la quemadura hipodérmica, la quemadura de 20 porciento de superficie corporal quemada y más de extensión, el apoyo de la lesión, el índice cubano de pronóstico con riesgo vital, la complicación local y la complicación sistémica(AU)

Introduction: The care for the patient with delayed healing starts from the optimization of their care. Reversing such condition requires knowledge of the risk factors. The national and international literature describes local factors related to the injury and general factors related to the patient's general condition. Objective: To estimate the risk factors for delayed healing in burn patients. Methods: An analytical case-control study was carried out with burn patients admitted to the caumatology service at Hospital Universitario Manuel Ascunce Domenech in the period from 2017 to 2021. The study population consisted of 267 patients. Odds ratio and confidence interval were calculated. Results: The development of delayed healing was three and a half times more likely in burn patients aged 45 years or over (odds ratio: 3.591). In addition, it was nine times more likely for associated chronic diseases, up to six times in nonaccidental burns, 163 times in local complications, and 89 times in systemic complications. Conclusions: The identified risk factors for delayed healing in burn patients were the following: age 45 years or over, presence of comorbidity, direct fire as causative agent, nonaccidental way of production, presence of more than six affected anatomical areas, hypodermic burn, burn extension of 20 percent or over on the burned body surface, injury contact pressure, the Cuban index of prognostic vital risk, as well as the local or the systemic complications(AU)

Caring for Patients With Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome: Summary of the 2023 ESICM Practice Guidelines.

This article summarizes the 2023 updated ARDS guidelines from the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, including the guidelines' methods, findings, and implications, along with reflections on next steps.

Love Your Patient as Yourself: On Reviving the Broken Heart of American Medical Ethics.

This article presents a radical claim: American medical ethics is broken, and it needs love to be healed. Due to a unique set of cultural and economic pressures, American medical ethics has adopted a mechanistic mode of ethical reasoning epitomized by the doctrine of principlism. This mode of reasoning divorces clinicians from both their patients and themselves. This results in clinicians who can ace ethics questions on multiple-choice tests but who fail either to recognize a patient's humanity or to navigate the ethical quandaries into which they are frequently thrown. Drawing on personal experience as well as the philosophical work of Augustine of Hippo, Simone Weil, and Iris Murdoch, we propose a novel ethical approach grounded in a conception of neighbor love, specifically, the virtue of love understood as attention to a sufferer's humanity. We conclude with five practical recommendations for reimagining medical ethics education oriented around the virtue of love.

The Binary Order of Things: A Discursive Study of Nursing Students' Talk on Providing, and Learning About, LGBT Patient Care.

Against the backdrop of the healthcare inequities and maltreatment facing LGBT patients, recommendations have been made for the inclusion of LGBT health topics in nursing curricula. Based on data collected in focus group discussions with South African nursing students, we complicate the assumption that training focused on health-specific knowledge will effectively reform providers' prejudicial practices. Findings reveal ambivalence: silence and discrimination versus inclusive humanism. Participants drew on discourses of ignorance, religion, and egalitarian treatment to justify their inadequacy regarding LGBT patients; while doing so, however, they deployed othering discourses in which homophobic and transphobic disregard is rendered acceptable, and "scientifically" supported through binary, deterministic views of sexuality and gender. Such "expert" views accord with Foucault's notion of "grotesque discourse." We conclude with a discussion of the findings' implications for nursing education; we call for the recognition and teaching of binary ideology as a form of discursive violence over LGBT lives.

Validación de instrumento para medir calidad percibida de los servicios de enfermería en el contexto hospitalario / Validation of an Instrument for Measuring Perceived Quality of Nursing Care in the Hospital Context

Introducción: La calidad de atención de Enfermería no se puede resumir en aspectos técnicos mecanizados, pues implica cuidado humano, que sustenta la necesidad evaluarla desde la percepción del sujeto. Objetivo: Validar un instrumento para medir la calidad percibida de los servicios de Enfermería en el contexto hospitalario. Métodos: Se realizó un estudio instrumental, en los servicios de hospitalización del Hospital Clínico Quirúrgico "Hermanos Ameijeiras", La Habana, Cuba, en el período de enero a julio de 2021. Participaron nueve expertos, 15 jueces, 30 pacientes y 10 profesionales de la Enfermería del área de hospitalización. Se emplearon la revisión documental, el grupo focal, el método Delphi y la prueba piloto. Como métodos estadísticos se emplearon los coeficientes de V de Aiken y Alfa de Cronbach. Resultados: El instrumento quedó conformado por tres dimensiones: Componente Técnico (24 indicadores); Componente Interpersonal (17 indicadores); Confort (7 indicadores). El consenso entre los expertos, determinado por el Coeficiente de Concordancia, resultó igual al 100 por ciento. El índice de coeficiente de V de Aiken, estuvo en todos los ítems por encima de 0,9 y global de 0,97. El coeficiente de alfa de Cronbach alcanzó resultados superiores a 0,9 en cada ítem y 0,96 global. Conclusiones: El estudio permitió validar un instrumento para medir la calidad percibida de los servicios de Enfermería en el contexto hospitalario. El instrumento alcanzó una buena validez de contenido, alta fiabilidad y consistencia(AU)

Introduction: The quality of nursing care cannot be summarized based on mechanized technical aspects, since it implies human care, which is supported by the need to assess it focusing on the subject's perception. Objective: To validate an instrument to measure the perceived quality of nursing services in the hospital context. Methods: An instrumental study was carried out in the hospitalization services of Hospital Clínico Quirúrgico Hermanos Ameijeiras, in Havana, Cuba, in the period from January to July 2021, with the participation of 9 experts, 15 judges, 30 patients and 10 nursing professionals from the hospitalization area. Documentary review, focus group, the Delphi method and the pilot test were used. Aiken's V and Cronbach's alpha coefficients were used as statistical methods. Results: The instrument consisted of three dimensions: technical component (24 indicators, interpersonal component (17 indicators), and comfort (7 indicators). The consensus among the experts, determined by the concordance coefficient, was equal to 100 por ciento. The Aiken's V coefficient index was above 0.9 for all items, while the global one was 0.97. Cronbach's alpha coefficient reached results above 0.9 in each item, while the global one was 0.96. Conclusions: The study allowed to validate an instrument for measuring the perceived quality of nursing services in the hospital context. The instrument achieved good content validity, high reliability and consistency(AU)

Gestión mSalud para la atención pacientes con Covid-19 / mHealth management for patient care with COVID-19

El SARS-CoV-2, ha tenido un gran impacto en la salud humana a nivel mundial, infectando a un gran número de personas y causando enfermedades graves. Durante el comienzo de la pandemia de Covid-19 no había la existencia de alguna cura o vacuna designada, la única forma conocida de romper la cadena de infección era el autoaislamiento y el mantenimiento del distanciamiento físico. Por lo tanto, con la finalidad de conocer y hacer un seguimiento para la correcta gestión y atención a los pacientes con Covid­19, las nuevas herramientas tecnológicas han cobrado un importante papel que ha permitido mejorar la atención en salud con respecto a la enfermedad y ayudar a evitar los contagios, así como favorecer a un buen pronóstico y progresión positiva de la enfermedad. Por medio de la revisión de publicaciones científicas actuales se ha podido observar la amplia implementación de diferentes apps para agilizar el reconocimiento, detección y diagnóstico oportuno de pacientes que contraen esta enfermedad, como la aplicación de rastreo de contacto, reconocimiento facial, Chatbot, APP para radiografías de tórax­Covid, dispositivo móvil basado en IoT, entre otros. Todas estas nuevas tecnologías presentan un importante impacto socioepidemiologico en las regiones a través de la disminución de la mortalidad, permitir el distanciamiento físico, detección oportuna, seguimiento geográfico y mapeo epidemiológico, reducción de los tiempos de espera y control de la propagación del covid; permitiendo a los sistemas de salud organizarse y prepararse mejor para futuras pandemias y así evitar el colapso de las redes de salud(AU)

SARS-CoV-2 has had a great impact on human health worldwide, infecting large numbers of people and causing serious illness. During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic there was no designated cure or vaccine, the only known way to break the chain of infection was self-isolation and maintaining physical distancing. Therefore, in order to know and follow up for the correct management and care of patients with COVID - 19, the new technological tools have played an important role that has allowed improving health care regarding the disease and help avoid contagion, as well as favor a good prognosis and positive progression of the disease. Through the review of current scientific publications, it has been possible to observe the wide implementation of different apps to expedite the recognition, detection and timely diagnosis of patients who contract this disease, such as the application of contact tracing, facial recognition, Chatbot, APP for chest x-rays ­ Covid, IoT-based mobile device, among others. All these new technologies have a significant socio-epidemiological impact in the regions by reducing mortality, allowing physical distancing, timely detection, geographic monitoring and epidemiological mapping, reduction of waiting times and control of the spread of covid; allowing health systems to better organize and prepare for future pandemics and thus avoid the collapse of health networks(AU)

Individualized Patient Care Through Model-Informed Precision Dosing: Reflections on Training Future Practitioners.

Prior to his passing, Dr. Roger Jelliffe, expressed the need for educating future physicians and clinical pharmacists on the availability of computer-based tools to support dose optimization in patients in stable or unstable physiological states. His perspectives were to be captured in a commentary for the AAPS J with a focus on incorporating population pharmacokinetic (PK)/pharmacodynamic (PD) models that are designed to hit the therapeutic target with maximal precision. Unfortunately, knowing that he would be unable to complete this project, Dr. Jelliffe requested that a manuscript conveying his concerns be completed upon his passing. With this in mind, this final installment of the AAPS J theme issue titled "Alternative Perspectives for Evaluating Drug Exposure Characteristics in a Population - Avoiding Analysis Pitfalls and Pigeonholes" is an effort to honor Dr. Jelliffe's request, conveying his concerns and the need to incorporate modeling and simulation into the training of physicians and clinical pharmacists. Accordingly, Dr. Jelliffe's perspectives have been integrated with those of the other three co-authors on the following topics: the clinical utility of population PK models; the role of multiple model (MM) dosage regimens to identify an optimal dose for an individual; tools for determining dosing regimens in renal dialysis patients (or undergoing other therapies that modulate renal clearance); methods to analyze and track drug PK in acutely ill patients presenting with high inter-occasion variability; implementation of a 2-cycle approach to minimize the duration between blood samples taken to estimate the changing PK in an acutely ill patient and for the generation of therapeutic decisions in advance for each dosing cycle based on an analysis of the previous cycle; and the importance of expressing therapeutic drug monitoring results as 1/variance rather than as the coefficient of variation. Examples showcase why, irrespective of the overall approach, the combination of therapeutic drug monitoring and computer-informed precision dosing is indispensable for maximizing the likelihood of achieving the target drug concentrations in the individual patient.