Description and evaluation of a canine volunteer blood donor program.

Human volunteer blood donor programs are commonplace, but the concept of nonhuman animal blood banking is relatively new. Few studies exist regarding efficacy, donor screening, and safety for volunteer companion animals. This retrospective study evaluated a nonprofit, community-based canine volunteer donor program using community blood drives. Of 98 potential donors, 14 were ineligible to donate, including 4 who tested seropositive for blood-borne pathogens. Of 84 donors, 45 were Dog Erythrocyte Antigen (DEA) 1.1 positive and 39 were DEA1.1 negative. Donations totaling 143 included 29 repeat donors (35%). No serious adverse events occurred. Minor adverse events included acute donor reaction (2.8%), hematoma (4.2%), rebleeding (2.1%), and skin irritation (0.7%). Adverse event rates were comparable to data for human blood donations. A substantial fraction of donors donated multiple times, suggesting that volunteer donors and their guardians perceived the donation process to be safe and effective. This article discusses the issue of donor consent and use of the term volunteer. This study indicates that nonprofit, community-based canine volunteer donor programs for animal blood banks can be successful while maintaining high safety standards and ethical treatment of volunteers.

A comparison of two methods for identifying frail Medicare-aged persons.

This article compares the efficacy of two screening methods to identify frail Medicare-aged persons using self-report questionnaire data: a clinical judgment method developed by nurse and social worker professionals in a community-based long-term care department and an empirical research method previously developed by the Center for Health Research using computer formulas and stepwise logistic regression coefficients. A sub-aim was to see whether the empirical method proved robust over time by measuring aggregate utilization and mortality in frail and nonfrail cohorts, which would increase the interest of physicians, managed care organizations, and other agencies providing service to Medicare beneficiaries.

Helicobacter pylori eradication in dyspeptic primary care patients: a randomized controlled trial of a pharmacy intervention.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effectiveness of structured adherence counseling by pharmacists on the eradication of Helicobacter pylori when using a standard drug treatment regimen. DESIGN: Randomized controlled clinical trial. SETTING: Nonprofit group-practice health maintenance organization (HMO). PARTICIPANTS: HMO primary care providers referred 1,393 adult dyspeptic patients for carbon 14 urea breath testing (UBT). INTERVENTIONS: Those whose tests were positive for H pylori (23.3%) were provided a standard antibiotic regimen and randomly assigned to receive either usual-care counseling from a pharmacist or a longer adherence counseling session and a follow-up phone call from the pharmacist during drug treatment. All subjects were given the same 7-day course of omeprazole, bismuth subsalicylate, metronidazole, and tetracycline hydrochloride (OBMT). Dyspepsia symptoms were recorded at baseline and following therapy. OUTCOMES: The main outcome was eradication of H pylori as measured by UBT at 3-month follow-up. Secondary outcomes were patient satisfaction and dyspepsia symptoms at 3-month follow-up. RESULTS: Of the 333 participants randomly assigned to treatment, 90.7% completed the 3-month follow-up UBT and questionnaires. Overall eradication rate with the OBMT regimen was 80.5% with no significant difference in eradication rates between the 2 groups (P=0.98). Conclusions In this study, additional counseling by pharmacists did not affect self-reported adherence to the treatment regimen, eradication rates, or dyspepsia symptoms but did increase patient satisfaction.